Is there a panther on the loose in Scotland ? Image Credit: Pixabay / ELG21
The footage, which was captured near Kirriemuir, Angus, shows a dark-colored animal walking through tall grass.
While sightings of exotic cats have persisted across the British Isles for years, experts remain divided on the issue and evidence of their existence in the country has been somewhat thin on the ground.
Some of the sightings are thought to be the result of big cat owners releasing their animals into the wild after the introduction of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act in 1976, but with reports of large cats continuing well in to the 21st-Century, it seems unlikely that this could explain all of them.
Most recently, a woman from Scotland captured footage of what could be a large black cat wandering through some grass next to tennis courts outside her home in the Scottish Highlands.
The 71-year-old was quite shocked by the encounter and believes that it may have been something exotic.
"My first thought was 'look at the size of that cat - what a long tail' and how big it was," she said. "I felt it was bigger than any cat I have seen. I was about one and a half bus lengths away from it."
"I went outside to get a closer look and was only a car length away. It looked big. It looked bigger than my Jack Russell dog. I thought it was longer then a Labrador dog but not as high."
They would have several generations before that happened. It is also distinctly possible that the black cats are panthers escaped from private zoos or dubious owners.
Please Login or Register to post a comment.