London Leopards?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on April 5th, 2009
UK cryptozoologist Neil Arnold (Monster! – The A-Z of Zooform Phenomena) has contributed an insightful new piece to the Londonist:
For more than twenty years I have researched sightings of mystery animals across London, Kent and Sussex. I am the UK’s only full-time ‘big cat’ researcher. And yet never, in all my moments of collating evidence, going out in the field and appealing for eye-witness reports, have I ever come across a report of a normal ‘spotted’ leopard. Until now…
Despite sightings of black leopard (the same as the ‘spotted’ leopard except it has a dark pigment to the coat), puma and lynx across London and the outskirts, the capital is not exactly ‘big cat’ country – although I’ve often written tales on the ‘beast of Bexley’, the ‘Surrey puma’, the ‘Golders Green lynx’, and other sightings from Abbey Wood, Southwark and Bromley.
During the week commencing 16th March, a Peckham Rye resident contacted local press to report, “Just walking my two dogs late this evening when one of them started acting really strangely near the back of the garden area. Then something came out of the shrubs and started to walk across the path into the picnic area. At first I thought it was a fox, then realised that it was actually bigger than my dog, which is a young Labrador.”
He continued: “…its tail was long and thin, curling up over its back and it had sandy-coloured fur with a leopard patching. It dawned on me that this was some kind of wild cat… then, seconds later a second one, smaller, appeared alongside it and they both turned and headed up the path and towards the wooded area.”
As reports of non-melanistic leopards are non-existent across the south, maybe the witness saw a lynx, although such animals have shortish tails, but do have mottled markings. Until of course, more people come forward to report these ‘leopards’, such a sighting can only be filed.
More can be found out about ‘cats around the capital’ in my new book, ‘Mystery Animals of Kent‘, available from Amazon.
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.
It is quite interesting, and entirely possible. Thank you for posting this wonderful read.
As I have pointed out to Di Francis and Merrily Harpur for their new books, BCIB archives have several reports of spotted leopards in the UK, and even a picture to boot!
I would also assume that people like Di Francis would have a little amusement as not being classed as a full time big cat researcher here in the UK.
I don’t doubt that there are some big cats living wild in Great Britain, but it’s awfully easy to misjudge the size of a common cat. What made this person so sure that the cats were bigger than a Labrador? The account does not say that the cats were ever close to the dog, so how did the person make the comparison?
In all likelihood these were a couple of common cats. Sometimes, in areas where they are native, big cats stray into suburbia, but those are cats that live in outlying rural areas, where there is prey to support them. There just isn’t a steady enough food supply in an urban area to support a big cat.
Mark (scotcats), I know you couldn’t resist a petty comment, but I was talking about my own research into ‘normal’ leopards…not your’s.
It would be nice for people to be civil, but as we know, that’s not possible, it’s ufology all over again.
Kittenz, I appreciate your comment, but prey is abundance in the UK to support populations of large cats. Urban areas are heavily poulated by domestic cats, foxes, rats, mice, squirrels, pigeons etc.