The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper-column inches than any other cryptozoological subject. There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived by us in some way, so we should have a go at publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in.It takes a long time to do and is a fairly tedious task so I am not promising that they will be done each day, but I will do them as regularly as I can. JD
In Essex, where, only a week or so ago, one of the more farcical pieces of British mystery cat history took place. Two CFZ stalwarts have commented on the events:
Jon,
Here is a link to the best picture I have so far found on this story:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/aug/27/essex-lion-hunt-bank-holiday#
The zoomed image shows a cat lying at the edge of a stubble field. Combine harvester operators normally work the machines with the cutter bar slightly off the ground (repairing sickle-bar cutters is difficult and expensive), leaving about six inches of stubble.
The "lion" pictured there is lying partly flat. Its hindquarters are entirely hidden by the stubble, only the front is visible. Therefore, lying down the hips must only project about six inches or less above the ground, meaning that it is way too small to be a lion, leopard or puma.
Apart from that the head is too short and too rounded for any big cat, oh and the Mirror newspaper has found a likely-looking local ginger tom-cat tame enough to pose for their cameraman. It might be this lion, then again the beast might be another, quite different domestic cat but one thing's for sure: the Essex "lion" is NOT a big cat.
Dan H.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/aug/27/essex-lion-hunt-bank-holiday#
The zoomed image shows a cat lying at the edge of a stubble field. Combine harvester operators normally work the machines with the cutter bar slightly off the ground (repairing sickle-bar cutters is difficult and expensive), leaving about six inches of stubble.
The "lion" pictured there is lying partly flat. Its hindquarters are entirely hidden by the stubble, only the front is visible. Therefore, lying down the hips must only project about six inches or less above the ground, meaning that it is way too small to be a lion, leopard or puma.
Apart from that the head is too short and too rounded for any big cat, oh and the Mirror newspaper has found a likely-looking local ginger tom-cat tame enough to pose for their cameraman. It might be this lion, then again the beast might be another, quite different domestic cat but one thing's for sure: the Essex "lion" is NOT a big cat.
Dan H.
The Essex Lion farce, according to Neil Arnold:
Dan, there was never any 'big cat' roaming Clacton. The photo shows a domestic cat, simple as that.
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