A Courier article from 1988 tells the story of a close encounter with a big cat in Fife.DC Thomson
I wrote before about newsroom excitement about beasts on the loose but omitted the most frequently mentioned creatures.
These are the big cats, sightings of which come in from every corner of our territory and require a separate article.Big cat stories are common across all British newsrooms from the south of England to the north of Scotland. Over the decades, I have edited scores of big cat stories and seen almost as many photographs.
Most of these pictures were taken in the split second available to the photographer so the quality can vary. Some, however, are convincing. The wider availability of cameras and camera phones in the past few years means there is a deeper pool of photographic evidence.
I was of the view that big cat sightings peaked in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But I set out to test that view with a dig through the archives.
The cuttings did back up my memory of a peak period but there were also credible sightings from much earlier including an authenticated capture of a big cat in Scotland.
One article, from 1988, dealt with a series of big cat sightings in north-east Fife. The belief back then, and one backed by an animal expert, was that the beast was a lynx.
One motorist even knocked it down and managed to get a close look at it. To my memory, this is the closest any member of the public has got to a big cat in any story we have reported.
The driver collided with something late one night near Cupar and left his vehicle to investigate. He realised he had knocked down a large beast with pointed ears and reckoned, at the very least, it was a wildcat. The animal survived the accident, struggled to its feet and then made off.
In the ensuing days, there were reports of a mystery animal being spotted in woods around Wormit and Newport.
Quarry worker Kenneth Wilkie of Douglas, Dundee, saw it cross a road and described it as being as big as a labrador.
Another article, from 1995, stated that police in Dundee and Angus were investigating a big cat on the loose after a sheep was savaged near Monifieth. The carcass of the adult Jacob’s ewe was stripped of its flesh. The grim find followed weeks of reported sightings in the Monifieth area.
The year before, a large black panther-like creature was spotted in the Sidlaws near Tullybaccart. There was another sighting on Broughty Ferry Esplanade in March 1995 and one in the Gotterstone housing development in Dundee.
However, the only big cat capture I have come across in the archives took place in 1980.
Here is a quote from The Courier of Thursday, October 20, 1980: “A puma was captured alive in Scotland yesterday in a man-made trap after an eight-month Highlands hunt by a farmer. The animal was enticed to a cage by a sheep’s head dangling from a rope at the entrance to the trap which was built by Mr Ted Noble of Kerrow Farm, Cannich, near Inverness.”
Mr Noble had set the trap eight months earlier when one of his ponies was attacked by a big cat. The director of the Highland Wildlife Cat at Kincraig, Eddie Orbell, confirmed the animal was a puma. But his conclusion was that the big cat seemed too tame and too well fed to have been living wild. He believed it had been hand-reared as a cub and had been kept as a pet.
The animal went on to live at the wildlife park where it was given the name Felicity. She died in February 1985.
There have been hundreds, if not thousands of sightings in this area, but still we have to secure definitive photographic evidence of a lynx, lion, panther or puma.
I do not doubt the very many genuine people who have contacted us over decades. Something seems to be out there but I am still looking for a photograph.
Anyone have the clincher?
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