Beast of Balbirnie
Posted by: Loren Coleman on February 2nd, 2006
Tracks of a black leopard or melanistic panther in Scotland, at first dismissed by police as those of a St. Bernard dog, have been confirmed as a large feline’s.
Scottish law enforcement authorities, on the evening of February 1st, released a statement noting they feel a black leopard (the size of a collie) is roaming near a Scottish town.
As the Glasgow Herald is reporting in their February 2nd issue:
A plaster cast of a paw print made following a sighting of the so-called “Beast of Balbirnie” in October [2005] has been studied by zoologists. The large, dark-coloured animal has been spotted several times in recent months near Markinch, Fife. Constable Mark Maylin, wildlife officer with Fife Constabulary …said: “We’ve had a plaster cast of the animal’s footprint examined and the conclusion was it was certainly not a dog. Experts were as certain as they could be that it was an exotic cat. They couldn’t specify the species but due to reports of sightings we’ve had about a large black cat, it’s almost certain to be a black leopard.”
Efforts will now be made to capture it. But some experts are dubious it will be caught.
Maylin said: “The reality is that we are very unlikely to get close to the animal unless we’re very, very lucky….It’s not really worrying. These things have co-existed with humans in the countryside for quite some time, if you believe the sightings. As long as it stays like that I don’t see any problem. Personally, I don’t believe everyone who saw it could be wrong.”
The “Beast of Balbirnie,” during the last few months, has been sighted near the trash cans of homes on the outskirts of Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland. More that six different large cryptid felids are reported to be roaming in Fife alone, say the police.
But a skeptical cryptozoologist has disputed the findings on the cast. According to the Herald:
The cast of the 9cm by 10cm print taken by police is almost three times as big as a domestic cat print, normally 3cm to 4cm. But Paul Westwood, who monitors and files sightings nationwide on his website, was not convinced. After studying a picture of the cast, Mr. Westwood said that it was the wrong shape for a cat.
Sightings of large felids, “Alien Big Cats” (ABCs), have been a frequent occurence in the United Kingdom since the 1970s. Most authorities acknowledge that the exotic pets laws passed during that decade caused many individuals to release their captive large cats into the wild. Breeding populations of non-native felids appear to have established themselves in the wilder parts of the UK, especially in Wales and Scotland.
The situation in North America is more complex. It appears in Canada and the USA the cryptid cat circumstances include (1) reestablishment of mountain lions (throughout the East) and jaguars (SW USA); (2) exotic large cat pets being released; (3) feral domestic cats that appear larger than they are; (4) pet smaller exotics and their hybrids with feral cats; (5) misidenifications (e.g. black labs, black Angus calves; inanimate objects; (6) hoaxes; and (7) cryptid felids as yet to be discovered, possibly related to the American Lion, Panthera atrox.
But, as they say, that’s a story for a future blog, but which can be read about, in the meantime, in Mysterious America, (obtainable while it still is in print, as a hardbound edition for two more months only).
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
FYI to all interested, forteantimes.com also has a report from the BBC with pictures of the paw print casts.
I don’t know, if it’s only “almost three times bigger” than a domestic cat it could still be a freakishly large domestic cat, like that one in Australia that was allegedly proven by DNA to be a domestic cat. If domestic cats really can get much bigger than commonly thought that opens up a lot more alternatives. And hybridization is also a possibility.
In the Gippsland Australia case, DNA only confirmed that the material submitted was that of a domestic cat.
It did not prove the size of the animal in question or even the specific material which was submitted.