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Beast of Gloucester


dragonlady_mothman

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Over the last decade the Cotswolds and the Forest of Dean have, along with just about every other area of the country, played host to one or more of those new British indigents - the ABC. I have been following the story locally since 1994 and the following is a fairly simple summary of the various sightings reported throughout that period.

In my earliest clipping the main thrust of the story points to the Black Beast of Inkberrow which, just possibly, attacked a woman in 1993 leaving 5" cuts on her waist. Gary and Stella Coates are organic farmers at Strensham, just north of Tewkesbury and according to Mr Coates: "When we got up to the farm we saw Rosie [a pet goat] lying down on her side so we went to investigate and got the shock of our lives." In fact Rosie had been savaged, her throat had been ripped open and her head was half eaten. "The injuries were too ferocious for dogs. They tend to attack from the back and work up, not the other way round. I described the injuries to a vet and he said it sounded like the work of a wild cat. I had heard of the Black Beast of Inkberrow and everything fitted into place. " His wife added: "Unfortunately we didn't take any photographs of the injuries and a paw print that was left was washed away by the rain but we are convinced." A spokesman for West Mercia police commented that he had had reports of a number of sightings in the previous year but that this was the furthest south so far. In point of fact this was not a southerly sighting of a Mercian Beast at all but the beginning of a whole series of encounters in the heart of Gloucestershire.

An article later that month describes how a Longney man came face-to-face with a 'huge black creature with blazing green eyes' which growled at him and ran off into the night as he was walking home towards Longney on the banks of the Severn just South of Gloucester. 'It was going so fast that it crossed a five-acre field in about ten seconds. Then it ran across the road about six feet away from me. I could see it very clearly. It was about three feet long and two feet high and it was definitely a big cat with very large teeth. I was terrified.' The local paper also refers to a Longney couple who had seen the creature the previous week as it pounced out in front of their car. Their description tallies with that of the other witness: 'It was a big black animal with a long tail but what really caught our attention was its massive green eyes. I have seen many animals down that road but I realised it was not a fox or a dog.' During the same week the landlord of the Ship Inn at Longney reported the loss of a Muscovy duck and the discovery of a goose with its head bitten off. The piece concludes with the comment that sightings have been reported in the area for over nine years from as far apart as Newent and Tetbury and even within Gloucester itself so I am obviously not tracking the story from its very beginning. In any case, a few days later at 5am a 'huge black beast' ran in front of Ray Lock's car on the other side of the river near Lydney.

Early June '94 brought in two new sightings from the Forest/opposite side(s) of the river. Two teenage girls spotted a large animal 'larger than a labrador dog' resting in the branches of a tree at Saul. '...it was much larger than a cat and had a long tail. It had a solid sleek black coat...we have had a few cases of chickens and geese going missing and I found a rabbit bitten in two in the field nearby' commented one girl. Two days later a pensioner out walking in woods near Newent also saw a large black cat 'trot calmly past'.

To keep up the momentum generated by these reports local film maker and 'big-cat hunter' Liam Dale (who had previously been associated with attempts to trap the Exmoor beast) offered a 1000 pounds reward for anyone who provided definitive photographic proof of the existence of the animal, largely in an attempt to deter anyone who encountered it from trying to shoot it. In an interview he voiced the opinion that the creature was a puma and stated that the animal was not vicious and would pose no threat to anyone who encountered it. Whether the offer of a reward helped or not the beast made only sporadic appearances throughout the summer; one evening near Monmouth where it was described as 'jet black and about the size of a large dog', a 12:55am sighting of a 'large cat' caught in a car's headlights which made off towards a factory near Whitminster and ,finally, towards the autumn where 'a big black cat three times the size of a fox' was seen alongside the M5 Michaelwood services. However, one incident stands out and it involves four teenagers out camping near Bisley. The tale told by 13 year old Daniel Hasler has to rank alongside the more dramatic close encounters of the furred kind: 'We heard a deep growl so ran back down the hill, jumped over a gate and then looked back. There was a very large black cat coming towards us. We could hardly believe it. We all saw it. It was definitely not a big dog, it had huge paws. I think that it was about half as big again as a labrador'.

The summer of 1994 did throw up one surprise in the shape of a Stroud motorist driving along the A38 near Whitminster. He made a statement to Stroud police saying that he had caught sight of an animal around the size of a labrador dog as it crossed the beams of his headlights one evening in August. However he described his cat as being gold in colour with dark patches. Following the reporting of this sighting in the local press a copy-cat (sorry) sighting was phoned in to the local hotline. John and Patricia Eardley, a couple from Quedgley on the south side of Gloucester, saw a creature that they described as two feet high, fawn coloured with darker spots and pointed ears five times within the space of a fortnight. They thought the animal might have been a lynx, a sentiment echoed by Liam Dale who said that he too had received reports of light coloured cats, although he rather spoilt the effect by commenting that he expected the lighter coloured animals to be mistaken glimpses of large dogs. Given that Mrs Eardley had been able to approach to within a couple of feet of her mystery cat the chances of her not recognising a large dog seem unlikely and the chance that a second kind of wild cat may be roaming the area remains a possibility.

The next sighting of the beast came from considerably further south: near the M5 Michaelwood services in fact off towards Bristol. Three separate sightings of a 'big black cat, three times the size of a fox' were made as it crossed a stubbled field near junction 14. These latest reports, coming as they did from a distance of more than 30 miles from the usual haunts of the animal, may in fact be another indication that more than one animal is lurking in the Gloucestershire backwoods. Over a month later Liam Dale resurfaced with an appeal for a mystery caller who had left a message on his answerphone claiming to have found the lair of the 'puma' to contact him again. This call was presumably a hoax as despite a repeat of the 1000 pound reward offer no further details were ever forthcoming.

In October Police Inspector David Morgan was driving near Staunton early one morning when a 'panther' leapt in front of his car. Demonstrating admirable observational skills he described it as "...black, larger than a fox but smaller than a small horse (!), about the size of a large dog." November brought another glimpse this time reported by a Staunton couple driving from Newent on Monday 2nd at around 9.30 in the evening. They claimed to have seen a cat-like animal walking along the side of the road but, understandably perhaps, declined to stop and investigate. Their description was of something that '...could not have been a domestic cat because its legs were too long. It was at least two feet high. It wasn't a cat, it wasn't a fox and it was too high for a badger. I wouldn't like to say what it was.' The following week a woman on a bus near Westbury-on-Severn spotted an animal slinking along the ground, again hugging a hedgerow, which she was certain was not a domestic cat. 'It was jet-black and velvety with a really long tail' she observed. And again, on November 20 Mrs Margaret Jones spotted the creature near Dymock. Her description was very complete although she did not contact the press until early the following year. '...I saw this black animal walking down the road towards me. I had a very full view. It was about as high as a sheep but it had the swaggering roll of a cat. It turned totally sideways and I was amazed to see a very long tail which touched the ground and curled up at the end for about nine inches. It was a muscley sort of animal, pitch black with a small head and this massive tail...I was watching it for a couple of minutes as it came towards me then it jumped 10 or 12 feet up the bank and disappeared.' Even allowing for some exageration in sizes this would seem to be a dramatic description.

If you really want to catch a glimpse of one of these mysterious creatures it would seem that the best place to do so is from a car. A couple of weeks after the previous sighting there was another sighting of a black animal the size of a large dog crossing the A417 near Staunton. Similarly, plumber Trevor Bees was driving down a minor road near Redmarley, Newent when he saw a huge black cat cross in front of his headlights at around 8.45 one evening. He described it as grey or black with a tail which came straight down and then curled back up at the end. Again, a Cheltenham couple were surprised to see 'a giant cat more than 3 feet long' race across in front of their car at Baunton, near Cirecester. 'I thought at first it was a young cheetah by the way it moved but my wife believes it may have been a European wild cat'. They described it as having dark tabby colouring and a long ringed tail. Some of these animals prefer to show themselves to more relaxed travellers, including the puma which showed itself to a Mr Peter Friggett who was waiting at a bus stop between Breedon and Kemerton. He described the animal as 'all black and the tail was 18 inches long and nearly two inches thick. It definitely wasn't a domestic animal.' Shortly afterwards huge paw-print were found at Ashton under Hill. They were said to have had exceedingly long claw marks - note that the domestic cat keeps its claws retracted when walking.

And then, Chris Evans (this one a Rank Xerox worker rather than a DJ) captured a large black animal on video from the window of his home in Mitcheldean. (See below) In fact he topped this by filming the cat and another animal, possibly a cub, the following day. The first film was bought for 200 pounds by the BBC but its authenticity was subsequently questioned; the second film was examined by cat behaviour expert Peter Neville and Liam Dale (who after all had something of a financial interest in the tape as his reward offer was still standing). Their first impressions were favourable. Using a fence and some trees in the footage to estimate scale they calculated the length of the creature to be over 4 feet: unfortunately when they examined the actual area where the video was filmed and found paw-prints in the ground they realised that the scale of the animal was considerably smaller that they had at first supposed. As Peter Neville said 'At first viewing the video appeared to show a big cat, possibly a panther, but the tracks we found in the garden proved it was a much smaller feline. It's a shame but we are still convinced there is a big cat out there somewhere as there have been so many positive sightings.'

However a positive identification of the animal on the video was made by local man, Peter Price. He produced his pet cat, a 16-lb black moggie by the name of Jake who stands a foot tall and claimed that a number of local people had misidentified the animal as the beast (although no-one seems to have noticed that the second film showed two large cats). Dale and Neville doubted that the video showed Jake but did concede that it was unlikely to be genuine footage of the Beast.

More footage surfaced in May as Danny Nineham filmed a creature he saw stalking across fields near to Abenhall School. He watched the animal following a hedge up a hill and disappear over the brow and filmed it for around 8 seconds. The image was blurred but he described it as large, with a long tail and looking just like pumas he had seen in zoos. He also claimed a number of other sightings over the previous years but declined to reveal the location of these haunts for fear of attracting too many sightseers to the area and scaring the beast away.

Some people would rather that it was scared away though. Towards the end of July the Ministry of Agriculture hatched a rather bizarre plan to track down the 'Puma' and held trials, supervised by wild cat experts from London Zoo, to select the ideal candidate for the task. The test consisted of a number of dogs following a trail made up of a cocktail of natural scents but consisting primarily of puma urine and the winner was a Gascony Blue Hound called Barnaby. Despite the publicity that the winner received he was evidently unsuccessful as the story never surfaced again.

There was one more rural sighting of a black cat prowling around the Sharpness bypass and then the animal began to move into Gloucester itself. David Smith and his teenage daughter were putting out rubbish in their garden at Wheatridge when something snarled at them from the undergrowth. 'We looked at each other and then up at the motorway embankment which runs behind our house. We saw something black up there. It wasn't a dog. We walked round to get a clearer view and saw what looked like a huge cat loping off at great speed. Curiously enough it did not run towards open fields but off towards Upton St Leonards...I thought it must have escaped from a safari park.' In Upton-St-Leonards itself Mike Curtis spent some time watching the cat through his telescope while out walking his dog through woodlend near to the M5 motorway embankment. 'I am a keen walker and see lots of wildlife but I have never seen anything like that. I saw it crouching by a hedge about 150 yards from where I was. When I got a closer look through the telescope I was certain that it was a big cat - it was certainly bigger than Suzie [his border collie). It was black with slightly grey hind legs which looked very powerful. It seemed to be injured and was moving very sluggishly'. His opinion was that it closely resembled a lynx (even though the lynx is brown and spotted whereas he had described a black animal). Dr Gordon McGlone, director of the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust commented 'If he did see a big cat there is little chance of it wandering into the city.' He was wrong.

On the morning of June 6th1995 at around 7.30 86-year old Dorothy Gwilliam heard the birds in her garden in the Barnwood suburb of Gloucester begin to clamour and opened her bedroom curtains to investigate the cause of all the excitement. At the bottom of her 50-foot garden she saw a large black cat which promptly ran across to the five-foot fence at the side of the lawn and vaulted over it into her next-door neighbours property. From there it continued to run and jumped right over a fence that was approximately 6 feet high before disappearing into trees. Significantly, a stream bordered by undergrowth runs along the bottom of the gardens on this side of the road and would have afforded the animal an easy path into and out of the estate; this is particularly necessary as the Gwilliams live on one of the built-up areas surrounding the city centre which seems an unlikely habitat for a wild animal. Mrs Gwilliam was brought up in the Forest of Dean and is well versed in the local fauna but declared that she had never seen anything like it before. 'It was the marvellous way such a big beast could jump over such a high fence. I never saw an animal do it...It was a big thing, bigger than an ordinary cat, much bigger. I thought it was like a young puma...I don't know what it is.' She also described it's tail as being exceedingly long and thick. A resident of a nearby street also reported a sighting and Mrs Gwilliam's neighbour found a paw-print in the newly turned earth of his vegetable patch - unfortunately by the time I arrived heavy rain had long since erased all traces of it.

Around the time of this sighting a lair was found deep in the Forest of Dean. The ubiquitous Liam Dale found animal skulls, ribs and other assorted remains widely scattered in the surrounding woods. When an environmental health officer visited the scene the following day he discovered that someone had gone to great pains to clear up the site with many of the bones having been removed and the area soaked in strong disinfectant, particularly an area covered in animal vomit containing chewed bones. The discovery of saw marks on some of the bones only served to deepen the mystery. One theory put forward was that the area had been used for illegal sheep slaughtering although this fails to explain the presence of the animal lair except perhaps either as a coincidence or due to the ready availability of carrion for the Beast. My personal theory is somewhat unpleasant and involves semi-wild dogs and organised sheep baiting but the human involvement at the site would seem to rule out the possibility of it being the Beast's real lair. Liam Dale however disagrees and considers that the lair was almost certainly occupied over a considerable period by some kind of semi-wild animal, possibly with some human contact - a released pet that is still being fed by its previous owner perhaps? In any case someone obviously had something to hide.

Despite the distractions caused by the discovery of the putative lair sightings continued. A doctor answering an emergency call at 5.30am spotted it near Newent as it crossed the road about 70 yards in front of his car. He described it as larger than a domestic cat, possibly three or four feet from nose to the tip of it's long tail, and looking somewhat like a puma. Two weeks later a woman described a slightly smaller but otherwise identical animal she encountered on the same stretch of road one afternoon. She is quoted as saying it was very black and sleek-looking, two feet tall with a long black tail and definitely not a domestic cat.Similarly two schoolboys watched 'a huge black cat...bigger than the biggest black dog' run across a field and jump over a bramble bush in Cinderford.) Despite all the testimonies forthcoming throughout the summer Liam Dale withdrew the offer of the o1000 reward citing 'lack of interest' from the public. He did however emphasise that he still believed in the existence of the Black Beast and wanted to hear from witnesses but stated that he would rather the animal was left to its own devices in the forest. At this time he also voiced the opinion that if the Beast began to harm livestock or people then it should be hunted down and destroyed, a sentiment that found more popular expression the following year.

And then the brown Beast reappeared in another report of a visit to a domestic garden, this time in Upton-St-Leonards. Marjorie Jones had opened her bedroom curtains one morning to see a large cat strolling across the lawn. 'It was a very, very large cat, graceful with an almost aristocratic look about it - a beautiful animal. We often get foxes in the garden and it was following the path that they had made. I have a dog [breed unknown!] and it was much bigger than that, and there are no doubts about it - this was a big cat, dark brown in colour with quite long legs and a long tail'. In the same article there was a somewhat more panicky quote from Gloria Mann, a health worker who nearly collided with the animal as she drove along a country lane near Quedgeley on the southern outskirts of Gloucester. 'This thing ran out from between a break in the hedge in front of my car only a matter of feet away. At first I thought it was a doberman but it was bigger than that, more like a panther, black and sleek, but it was the speed the thing was moving that amazed me' Back in Upton-St-Leonards an unnamed motorcyclist was on his way to work at around 5.30am when he too nearly ran into the cat as he rounded a corner to find it in the middle of the road. As he swerved desperately around what he initially took to be a black great dane it leapt into roadside shrubbery and blended immediately into the undergrowth leaving the dazed rider with only an impression of a four-foot cat with a long black tail.

Interestingly, around this time a local UFO group received a report of a strange alien creature alongside a road near Tewkesbury. The 'alien' aws described as looking a little like a brown paper bag propped up on a stick. As the witness passed in his car the creature bounded off down the road. Robin Coles, the UFO investigator who questioned him, showed me a sketch which the witness interpreted as a creature with exceedingly large upright ears but which, to my eyes, looked surprisingly like the silhouette of a cat crouching beside the road with its haunches raised as if ready to spring.. While I would hesitate to assert that this was a misidentification of the Beast it does illustrate how investigators tend to interpret evidence according to their own preconceived ideas or theories. It also suggests that many other similar cases lie hidden in other groups files, labelled as alien visitors, ghosts, pixies or indeed ABCs as determined by the prejudices of the interviewer.

But I digress. How about this for a moonlight encounter? Stan Parker was fishing on the night of August 8th at Selwyn Pond, in Matson (well within the boundaries of Gloucester) when he noticed something emerge from the bushes on the opposite bank. At first he assumed that it was a large brown dog. 'I soon realised that this was no dog...it was about 30 feet away from me. It was about two feet high and around four feet long. I shone my torch at it and it was definitely from the cat family. It wasn't startled by me, it just loped off. I remember thinking it knew where it was going; it looked completely at home...I don't mind saying I was terrified.'

Chris Thompson, an active local paranormal investigator, was more interested than scared when he caught a glimpse of the Beast at the top of Birdlip Hill when returning from Cirencester on November 12th. He noticed what seemed to be a black cat, nearly three feet long, four feet including the tail, half in and half out of the bushes to the side of the road. Because of the traffic on the road he was unable to stop and investigate further.

Things quietened down over the winter with only one report from Saul, again from a bedroom window. 'I was looking out of my window towards the gravel pits at 7.38am. I saw a huge black panther about 500 yards away. I picked up my binoculars and watched it for four or five minutes ... It looked right at me and then slunk off into the undergrowth'. The witness later went looking for paw prints but the animal seemed to have disappeared without trace. Later, in April, three elver fishermen were returning home just after 10pm when they saw something crossing the road ahead of their car. '...it was looking at us and its eyes were glowing red. We all got a very good view. It was black all over and it was a huge cat like a panther. It had a long tail which curved down to the ground and turned up again. It was long and thin and much too big for a dog.' I will only comment that glowing red eyes are more commonly associated with spectral dogs than black cats; perhaps the car headlights had something to do with it.

Robinswood Hill, an outlier from the main Cotswold range, rises from near the centre of Gloucester as a wooded island of wilderness within the city. The area of the hill (with the exception of the Country Club, the golf course and the ski slope...) is a nature reserve and, the high probability of human contact notwithstanding, a logical place to find a stray ABC. By May it looked as if the cat had made its way to the area as a father and son parked at the foot of the hill claimed that it strolled calmly in front of their car one afternoon. 'It was a fantastic sight. He was at least twice the size of my labrador with big pointed ears. It looked very fit... I hate to think of it up there with young kids hanging around, it could be a bit dangerous' said one of the pair.

This incident sparked a sense of unease that had only begun to be hinted at the previous year. City conservation officer Derek Brown declared that he had been deluged by calls from parents concerned about their childrens' safety. Disappointingly, the Head Warden of the Robinswood Hill Country Park was sceptical. 'I have never seen a black ***** cat up there, never mind a black puma and I live up there', he said, adding 'There are 50 wardens wandering around every day and they've never seen anything. We haven't even noticed a decline in rabbits...There is more chance of my believing in ghosts than black pumas on Robinswood Hill'. In fact Haydee Roberts suspected that the whole Robinswood episode could stem from a misidentification of her deer hound, Crow, since she regularly took him for walks around the hill. Naturally, given the wide geographical spread of the other sightings, there is no way that Crow could have been responsible for any of the other reports from around Gloucestershire but, in this instance at least, the description of the beast as being twice the size of a labrador and looking 'fit' match Crow to a considerable degree (see below).

As an aside a later report also linked a dog to the mystery ABC. In August 1995 a Shar Pei dog called Eric was being walked on Robinswood Hill when he was scared by fireworks and ran off. For the next few year he lived off scraps left by local people until he was eventually recaptured by a dog warden and passed to the care of a local animal shelter until his owner could be traced. Looking like a cross between a boxer and a bloodhound Eric could hardly be mistaken for any kind of cat, indeed the paper contacted Mrs Gwilliam who had spotted the cat from her bedroom window in the spring of 1995 and she commented that the animal she saw bore no resemblance to the wild dog. Note that Eric's survival on the hill does however support the possibility that more streetwise creatures could live there.

An animal that was most definitely a cat was seen during the summer at Barnwood, just near the city bypass. Ted Snow was cycling along a hedged footpath near the local ice-cream factory and as he crested a slight rise he saw a cat stretched out across the path in front of him. Because of his speed he was unable to stop but swerved around the animal and carried on for a distance before slowing and looking back. After this encounter the mystery cat sauntered to one side of the path and disappeared into the hedge. Mr Snow described the cat as being around 18" high at the shoulder with its head held low, almost on a line with the spine. He commented on the smoothness of its coat and the apparent normalcy of its tail and ear shape although he did notice that both its legs and body seemed stretched out of all proportion to that of a domestic cat. His description was picturesque: 'If you took the front part of one cat, up to the back legs, and stuck it onto the back part of another cat, up to the front legs, and then made the legs longer then that would be the approximate shape.' Mr Snow considered that the animal may have been a feral domestic cat, or possibly a cross-breed of some kind. He commented that non-neutered male cats would grow to exceptional size in the wild. In fact I contacted the local Cat Protection League for confirmation of this and their opinion was that an un-neutered male kept well-fed in a domestic environment could indeed grow up to 20% larger than a neutered animal but that in the feral state a cat would find its diet too restricted to be able to achieve such a size.

Interestingly, the report printed in the local paper described the animal as being a two feet high panther and as 'big, black and mean'. In direct contradiction to their original height estimate the paper 'quoted' Mr Snow as saying 'my wife has a bull mastiff and it was easily as big as that'. Needless to say, given the conflicting reports from witnesses and newspapers in this instance may well indicate that a number of the preceding reports may need to be scaled down accordingly.

As if to return full circle there was another sighting some way towards the north of Cheltenham the following month. Residents of the village of Gretton began to notice a 'jet-black beast' around three times the size of a cat lurking in the woods around the village. Pensioner Margaret Pullen saw the creature being chased down a lane by two dogs one night. 'It just flew over the fence. One man said it had its ears flat back like a cheetah or panther'. Shortly afterwards the animal had moved on to neighbouring Gotherington. Students working on the private railway line reported seeing it and Mrs Jenny Aldridge was walking her two spaniels when something jumped down from a railway embankment beside the path. 'At first I thought it was a dog but it was definitely a member of the cat family. It was at least 18" high and two-and-a-half feet long with a long tail, hooked at the end. It was far bigger than any cat I have ever seen.'

And then I may even have seen it myself. Driving into work on the morning of September 26th I noticed a large black animal slinking alongside a hedge in a field in some of the farmland to the west of Cheltenham. It certainly seemed larger than a domestic cat but since appearances can be deceptive I turned the car around and went back to the field to explore. I got muddy and I got to work late: there were no pawprints and there was no sign of the cat. Such are the joys of chasing ABCs.

Switching back to the Forest of Dean, farmer John Ravenhill encountered an animal 'two or three times the size of a domestic cat' lurking around farm buildings. 'I know animals' he said, 'and this was not a cat, a fox or a dog. It's tail was not a fox's tail and it moved too sleekly to be a dog. It also did not make a sound which is unlike a dog.'

Finally a couple of sightings from 1997 to bring the story up to date. Builder Chris Lock had been watching television in his home in St Briavels in the Forest of Dean one evening when he switched on the security lights to the rear of his house. Revealed in the sudden glare was a large black creature attacking the dustbin. 'It had already knocked over one dustbin and when the light went on it just stood there. I got a good look at it, it was so close and fully illuminated by the lights. When I banged on the glass it just ran off. It was about the size of an alsatian dog with smooth black hair, but it was definitely cat-like...This is the second time our dustbins have been done over [in three months].' The following day Alan Hale was returning from work in the early hours of the morning when he saw a black animal jump from the road into some undergrowth by the roadside near Coleford. His description was that 'it was definitely not a deer. It had a long tail and what surprised me was the speed of it. It was cat-like and black all over.'

So what are these mysterious creatures that so many people have been seeing and could a large wild animal really survive in the area? Given the large area covered by these sightings and the wide-ranging habits of these creatures there is certainly sufficient game to support a small population of cats, particularly since these animals prefer what Liam Dale refers to as 'frozen food' meaning prey such as rabbits and pheasants which will attempt to freeze rather than flee and consequently make an easy catch.

Furthermore, many of the descriptions given by witnesses do match actual species of cat rather closely. For instance, the Eardley's description of a brown spotted cat with pointed ears could certainly be a lynx as they imagined (see above) but might easily also be a bobcat which has similar colouring and also has tufted ears (although considerably smaller). Similarly the European Wildcat is another candidate, resembling as it does an over-sized tabby and the tail of this species is heavily striped or banded, a feature specifically mentioned in the Baunton sighting in 1994.

Unfortunately there are problems with accurately identifying the numerous black cats due to a wide range of sizes and descriptions but, given that a number of elements of the descriptions given to tally well - particularly the long upturned tail, long legs and sleek black fur (see the 1994 Westbury-on-Severn sighting for an example) there seems to be a convincing case to be made for the existence of a released very large cat, possibly even a panther, in the area (see Figure 4 below). However, bearing in mind the publicity that the story receives in the local press the possibility that these have become 'standard' features of any report needs to be considered. If we accept that at least some sightings are genuine then we must accept that there are a number of these animals at large. The Bristol to Birmingham railway will tend to act as a natural territory boundary (wild animals are disturbed by the vibration of the rails and avoid the tracks) and so sightings in Gloucester and the Forest must be assumed to be separate individuals.

Probably the best that we can do is suggest that the evidence of Scottish wild and domestic cats interbreeding to create large black hybrids could provide one possible explanation, another is that actual wild panthers (below) or less exotic species do roam the area. Liam Dale confirmed that, in the absence of mates of their own species, large wild cats could and would cross-breed should they meet so the picture is further clouded by the possibility that our ABCs may in fact be hybrids which will make any positive identification even more difficult.

And there the story rests; to date at least. Could all the diverse witnesses to the Beast be mistaken or is there truly something (or a number of somethings) roaming the Gloucestershire countryside? Something around 18" high and over two feet long, black in colour with a long curved tail and the ability to blend into its surroundings with the skill that only a wild animal could possess; something speckled brown around the same size with pointed ears and equal powers of camouflage; or something altogether less real, brown, grey or black with red glowing eyes and a rather more spectral method of disappearing without trace. Only time, and a little luck maybe, will provide an answer.

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http://www.deville.demon.co.uk/glosabc.htm

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Hi, I'm new to the site and come from The Forest Of Dean-Gloucestershire. The town of Coleford to be precise.

I have never seen the "beast" myself but my uncle did claim he nearly ran it over last christmas on his way home from the family party. He pulled over and phoned us and told us a huge "cat" had walked out into the road in front of him-when he stopped the car the "cat" stared at him and then ran off. blink.gif

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Hi, I'm new to the site and come from The Forest Of Dean-Gloucestershire. The town of Coleford to be precise.

I have never seen the "beast" myself but my uncle did claim he nearly ran it over last christmas on his way home from the family party. He pulled over and phoned us and told us a huge "cat" had walked out into the road in front of him-when he stopped the car the "cat" stared at him and then ran off.  blink.gif

605992[/snapback]

i thought fred west was the Beast of Gloucester

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Him too.

Needless to say, if he had ran out in front of my uncle then he wouldn't have stopped the car wink2.gif

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maybe britain gots giant mice problems and cats are there to help.. w00t.gif

Edited by Conspiracy
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LOL we do tend to be over run with mice and rats here in the forest! yes.gif

We have another legend here, some of you may know of it-we have a white stag. Sadly it was injured going back a few weeks but actually survived.

According to the story, the stag will bring you good luck. I'd never heard of it until my friend spotted it when we were driving around last winter-I didn't see it properly, it shot past me so quick! laugh.gif

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