A UK Lynx: 1903
Posted by: Nick Redfern on April 26th, 2013
In 1996, a lynx was seen near the Staffordshire town of Penkridge. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
“For over 100 years, a potentially significant dead cat has been sat in storage in a British museum. Specifically, the specimen – the lynx Ab4458 – has been at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery ever since it was added to the collections there in February 1903, and what makes it significant is that it was shot dead after living wild in Devon, southern England. As revealed in a new paper published by Aberystwyth University’s Max Blake and a team of colleagues (myself, Greger Larson, Charlotte King, Geoff Nowell, Manabu Sakamoto and Ross Barnett), the specimen represents a historic ‘British big cat’, though with ‘big cat’ being used very much in the vernacular sense, not the technical one (Blake et al. 2013).”
This is the opening paragraph of an excellent new article from Darren Naish at the Scientific American blog.
About Nick Redfern
Punk music fan, Tennents Super and Carlsberg Special Brew beer fan, horror film fan, chocolate fan, like to wear black clothes, like to stay up late. Work as a writer.
As somebody who admittedly chuckles at and ignores most of the “British big cat” stories, I found this one fascinating. No doubt there was one here.
Naish is a wonderful example of a scientist driven by evidence and evidence alone. He keeps his assumptions to the minimum, and his analysis is quite the better for it.
Very interesting article. I find it fascinating that one of the greatest pieces of evidence (if not the greatest piece of evidence so far) for OOP cats in Britain is a specimen over a century old. This find might not get the skeptics to admit to the larger phenomena of alien big cats and the like said to roam the United Kingdom, but it is nevertheless startling, very, very intriguing.
I wonder, sadly so, if indeed this incredible find, this breakthrough, will be superseded in both the crypto-zoological world and the mainstream media by the hoaxing film “Shooting Bigfoot” or “Shooting Sasquatch”, which features Biscardi, just as the discovery of the Luzon Lizard, a tree dwelling giant lizard (two meters long) was superseded in the media by yet another so-called Chupacabras corpse (which was later proven to be a more mundane animal) .
DWA and Hapa – lots of O.O.P. cats have been found over the years in the U.K. , most have either been run over or shot, i think one or two were captured alive, i have a list somewhere of some of them.
DWA and Hapa-
I found my list, 1980 A Puma was captured in Inverness Shire.
1989 A Jungle cat was found on the roadside in Shropshire after being hit by a car.
1991 An Eurasian Lynx was shot near Norwich, Norfolk.
1993 A Leopard was shot on the Isle Of Wight.
1993 A Puma was captured in Aviemore.
2001 A Lynx was captured in Cricklewood, North London.
As with similar things, a lot of the skeptics simply don`t know, or haven`t bothered to look at the evidence.