tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3552863045126634332023-11-16T09:01:29.348-08:00bigcatsinsussexresearch and investigation of Big cats in Sussexbigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-2238082270675468992018-07-03T10:28:00.002-07:002018-07-03T10:28:59.674-07:00Due to my website bigcatsinsussex.co.uk going down I will have to post news updates on the big cat situation in Sussex on here.
JUNE 2018 NEWS:
After a busy spring of a very large black cat that all witnesses said was around 25" tall being seen in the country around Uckfield, nothing has been heard since so it can be reasonable to assume that this beast may be in the Ashdown forest area chasing the deer there. Every year for the past 5 or 6 years from June onwards there has been sightings of both black and brown big cats spotted here, often seen in the act of chasing rather than stalking the deer. We often assume that big cats mostly stalk their deer either at dusk or night or even occasionally ambush however it is clear that many reports come in of actual chases going on. Leopards are short distance runners and yet these cats have been said to be running some distances longer than a leopard usually would. Big cats have also been witnessed in Sussex forests rushing through cover possibly trying to snap up fleeing rabbits much like as a hunting dog or a fox would. It is an effective method often more so if an element of surprise is added.
The large brown puma type cat has been seen again a month ago just on the same stretch of South downs of Mount Caburn near Lewes, East Sussex. It can also be assumed to also heading to the Ashdown forest. We shall have to wait for the witness reports to come in to see if this drought ridden year pans out like the others.bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-16713548946137035292016-11-22T01:55:00.002-08:002016-11-22T01:55:31.294-08:002016 big cat updateIt has been some years since I have updated this blog. News on big cats is now published first on Twitter then with maybe a follow up short article on the bigcatsinsussex.co.uk website, this blog has been sidelined as I haven't felt it necessary to elaborate on the bare bones of the case as it were.
A lot has changed since 2012. For a start, reported sightings from witnesses to big cat activity have diminished from around 50 good ones annually to around 10 as of this year. By good ones I mean reports that have come in that could be construed as being part of a cluster of sightings at in a general area, in other words all describing roughly the same size and sort of big cat, and seen in a rough area depending on the whim of myself at the time. Each winter a cluster of sightings often develops in an area with the reports positioned less than 10 or 15 miles away from each other and to die off as the weather warms up at the beginning of the year. Up until 2012 there might be up to 3 or 4 clusters of winter or early spring sightings that had developed sometimes not uncovered until the following summer when a chance encounter with someone who "saw a big cat last winter" along a few other locals allows a picture of big cat history to develop.
This year has seen around a dozen sightings with about the same last year and the year before that maybe a few more but still only fraction of say 2011 when there could be 2 or 3 sightings a week at peak times. It has been impossible to find any paw prints worth taking plaster casts of and nothing has been sent in. Despite swamping with trail cameras areas that had reputedly seen repeat returns of a cat on a regular basis nothing was achieved. There may of been any number of reasons why no photos were captured however it is certain that there is less big cat activity going on ergo there are less cats. In other words the population has slumped to 2 or 3 at best for the whole of the county including the border areas of the neighbouring counties of Hampshire, Surrey and Kent.
There appears to be only 1 reason for this that is circumstantial on the one hand and compelling on the other and that is that big cats principal prey are rabbits and that the huge rabbit number crash since late 2012 has been the driving factor in the rapid decline of big cats. A particularly virulent strain of rabbit haemorrhagic disease or VHD spread rapidly through the ranks of the burgeoning rabbit population that was exploding prior to this in some places. IT has been alleged that the disease was spread by humans intentionally but animals like rabbits and mice naturally fluctuate in number depending on food resources and the crashes are often caused by disease that is helped to spread by overcrowding and kills more of the weaker and under fed. In the good old days pre-2012 it wasn't uncommon to see 50 to 100 rabbits just along one hedge, the field virtually bare ground where they have cropped the grass or crops so much they have killed it off. The hedge would be honeycombed with rabbit holes and collapsing in places due to the immense earth moving going on above ground. Nowadays the same buries hold maybe a couple of rabbits. True, there the odd pockets of rabbits about where there are still quite a few and these tend to be along sandy, well drained banks, are in scrubby places that are perfect for bush rabbits i.e. those that live mostly above ground and so avoiding the disease spreading, damp and claustrophobic tunnels and are often bordered by areas that have little to hold rabbits like river marshes or forestry blocks hence preventing disease spread.
More follows...
bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-75798988102294524112012-02-12T07:12:00.000-08:002012-02-12T07:13:14.172-08:00Big cat goes indoors of house in Seaford<a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnDjIYY4km4e99ijBRqcRlf2tTk6TVGK7lixdVQNnjH6-WYRzOZ-PXjZqRkkk0XHRFjTqDgrp3SRHYL_ExhkICynaouMqbivmLJo9dtpaTAd-culyQZ4z4-7MUcGSspeXiu4zfbsP3_BwH/s1600/P8232677.JPG'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnDjIYY4km4e99ijBRqcRlf2tTk6TVGK7lixdVQNnjH6-WYRzOZ-PXjZqRkkk0XHRFjTqDgrp3SRHYL_ExhkICynaouMqbivmLJo9dtpaTAd-culyQZ4z4-7MUcGSspeXiu4zfbsP3_BwH/s400/P8232677.JPG' border='0' alt=''style='clear:both;float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;' /></a> <br /><br /><br />Last sunday(5th feb.and previously posted on bigcatsinsussex.co.uk/news)a big cat went indoors of a house on the outskirts of Seaford and was confronted by the occupants who shooed it out,i am unsure of the exact details but since the story broke on Meridian tonight last sunday it has sparked great interest and also wonder at why such a usually retreating type of animal would do such a thing.I have a chain of linking evidence,some might fairly say merely coincidences,that may offer an explanation.<br /><br />We will have to reel the clock back to the autumn of "09 and trip east along the coast a few miles to Peacehaven when a large sandy big cat crosses the path in front of a dog walker.Again,in the same field in november a black,slightly smaller but still large black cat was seen bearing in mind that sightings of big cats usually only describe the same sort of animal being in the same area,2 different ones is the exception.That winter i received mutliple reports from multiple witnesses of a big black cat and aslo a very big brown cat being seen along the coastal downland strip from Newhaven to Telscombe and further along to Saltdean often at night.The area of intense activity semmed to be centered arond the Telscombe area by early spring with possibly the most interesting ones describing the black cat coming out of the garden of one of the large houses in the area repeatedly and sometimes with some sort of food in it,s mouth.Intrigued,i met up with a friend who lived locally and was introduced to the householder.I was told that they had never seen a big cat but that every evening at dusk they put on quite a spread for the local foxes by supplying them with chicken legs and chunks of beef which they did every winter.Being elderly they retired to bed content in the knowledge they they were looking after their wild "pets".Were they in fact feeding a big cat or 2 without their knowledge and were the 2 big cats that were seen together actually mating?Some species of big cats such as leopards mate repeatedly over a period of time that the female is in season.Had the smaller black cat,the female,then gone on to give birth in probably march to a single cub,most likely in the dense scrub that lines the combes and deans of the area? <br /><br />As spring progressed we were in the grip of one of the latest spring baby rabbit boom seasons i have ever known with litters not being born until late march and the local situation was magnified,as far as the predators were concerned by the rabbits being culled thoroughly due to formerly being in plague proportions.So we have a situation of a sudden halt of the local food supply being the rabbits,an end to the free grub in the form of chicken wings as it was now spring.Is it any wonder that lambs were being taken just about every day.I was receiving reports from a sheep farmer about lambs going and were eaten out in an unusual way."It,s not like foxes"he said to me"the carcases are too clean with none of the fleece being scattered about".I investigated and true to his word found a literal boneyard of lamb skeletons,sprinkled with the a badger and also a fox carcase in the dense thorn scrub that i had to get on my hands and knees to get into.As the picture above shows i found a few disused(obviously!)wartime bunkers with entrances mostly blocked.In the war the down tops were a host of anti-aircraft batteries,look out posts and various other buildings with some of the most strategic having bunkers and tunnels stretching far underground and remaining secret and some are lost to this day.At Newhaven fort down the road is a surviving examlple.Could a big cat have had a cub in one of these tunnels safe and sound?I was phoned by an Argus reporter at the time and i can remember telling her that i was a bit buzy that day to go with them but if they just went to Telscombe old village and asked around they would speak to several witnesses who had seen varios big cat activity which they did including a chap who had seen one on his shed roof.The story was in the paper the next day as blogged in bigcatdetective.blogspot.com "big cat fears over animal deaths".<br /><br />Anyhow,by july the sheep kills had tailed off and my new trail camera had produced no big cat pictures however there was a sighting down the road just north of Piddenhoe by 2 people who had seen a largish cat around 16 to 18" tall,slim with a very long tail,being of a streaked golden colour similar to a serval cat they had seen in Africa one year.Experienced safarists they were adamant it wasn,t a domestic.Over the years when i have investigated possibilties of big cats that could of been breeding,like the situation here,there has sometimes been a sighting of a strange looking cat similar to this one and they are often described as servals,lynx but with long tails or whatever,the sightings would be of only a short period of time and never happen again in the same area.It could be that a cub that would of been born like this one would have a different,more camaflaged colour than the black or brown of it,s parents just like the leopards of this world and would then at around 6 months old change to the commonly seen black or brown.<br /><br />By late august we have a larger black cat seen with a smaller black cat running down the side hill at Devils Dyke.The following winter of "10/"11 sightings in the former area of what i had worked out to be the Offham big cat in the previous couple of years changed from being of a lab sized black big cat to a black cat of around 18" tall.I had theorised that the Offham big cat had given birth to what i now called the Telscombe cat and had formed a habit of wandering through peoples gardens on occasion or at the very least being seen repeatedly in the countryside edgeing on to suburbia.Sightings were;near garden at Lewes (pics on website)november and december,Newhaven,Peacehaven again in december,also gardens in Saltdean,Woodingdean,Ovingdean,then a garden in Brighton by march in the Ditchling road area(as reported in the Argus)I found a cat-like paw print on the downs at Falmer(evidence page on website no.37)which match the paw prints found in the snow outside the house at Seaford this week and are only smaller by 3 or 4 mm Barcombe in april,may seen at the back of Ovingdean again this time likely to be coursing rabbits.All these sightings were of a 18" tall black cat with a very long tail nearly as long as it,s body differentiating it from a domestic.In high summer sightings of a cat fitting the same description were popping up on the downs at South Heighton and also Seaford golf course which backs on to the downland ridge which leads up to Firle,it seemed to be now spending protracted times in areas of high rabbit population away from human habitation but by august a witness contacted me to say of strange padding on her conservatory roof at Telscombe Tye,i followed it up and uncovered a couple of sightings in the area at the time and by the end of the month a, by now,20" tall black cat was seen going through gardens at dusk setting the local dogs off on the outskirts of the southern end of Lewes and also at nearby Kingston.<br /><br />This winter sightings have been a little sparser however a large black cat was seen in a garden at Woodingdean last december and also back at the Seaford golf course area as well as the downs behind it,it,s typical for sightings of a big cat to decrease in it,s supposed second winter however it,s not usual at all for a big cat to be seen in peoples gardens so often in the same area(i had already mapped out the Offham cats territory to include these places and assumed it,s cub would be given a portion of it)in fact taking the county as a whole,sightings and evidence gathered in 2011 revealed big cat activity to of taken place in peoples gardens only very infrequently and not repeated much by the same cats.Not so here with the Telscombe big cat being seen regularly in peoples gardens.Could it have formed the habit early on in life by accompanying it,s mother to the house at Telscombe that forked out the chicken wings way back in the winter of 2010?If it is the same cat and i think it is, it would of learnt that food is freely on offer at these sort of places which would account for the above data.It may of been a step too far for it to actually go into someones house as it did at Seaford a s i,m sure it realised by it,s mistake but it might of been forced to by the onset of sub-zero temperatures that started the day before and are going on even now.I have already posted evidence that big cats find it harder to catch prey in times of hard weather.I doubt very much that such a usually shy creature as a big cat would repeat such a big mistake as going into a house,it has been reported before over the years in Sussex but has never happened again in the same area.That,s how wild animals learn about life sometimes,they nearly come a cropper,learn from it and don,t do it again......<div style='clear:both; text-align:RIGHT'><a href='http://picasa.google.com/blogger/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif' alt='Posted by Picasa' style='border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial;' align='middle' border='0' /></a></div>bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-46617514222373350472012-02-06T10:54:00.000-08:002012-02-07T15:16:56.516-08:00deer killed by fox not big cat at Woodchester<a href='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX1LmsdIKRXfWOFDSFa2mAjYA2dR3UV2yCSNXO1nMyP63WZjOgy9aGSIWBWmmjbAam7ubz_PxBi79nwTu1icU2biH7rbHSrcNX4BLN05Iz-puKZhOB6aeSjh8eAl5l9SXKnhhyphenhyphenoyniTIar/s1600/PB043391.JPG'><img src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX1LmsdIKRXfWOFDSFa2mAjYA2dR3UV2yCSNXO1nMyP63WZjOgy9aGSIWBWmmjbAam7ubz_PxBi79nwTu1icU2biH7rbHSrcNX4BLN05Iz-puKZhOB6aeSjh8eAl5l9SXKnhhyphenhyphenoyniTIar/s400/PB043391.JPG' border='0' alt=''style='clear:both;float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;' /></a> <div style='clear:both; text-align:RIGHT'><a href='http://picasa.google.com/blogger/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif' alt='Posted by Picasa' style='border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial;' align='middle' border='0' /></a></div><br /><br />Well that was a shame,the results from the DNA tests on the Woodchester(Glos.)deer carcases have come back with the most likely candidate being a fox.Not a trace of big cat DNA was found.Hats off though to our Gloucestshire colleages for having the guts to make public their intentions before the tests were even started,in this way the public were involved in the whole process from start to finish so gaining an insight into the processes albeit the many cul-de-sacs and dead endes that this big cat game produces.We live,we learn, as they say whoever "they" are.If the deer kids were killed by a big cat then peoples involvement along the way would of made people feel part of it.Still,it just goes to show just how hard it is to produce evidence of big cats and how that needs to backed up by other signifiers and not just be taken on it,s own.To be fair that hole in the neck is typical of some canid strikes and what it does show that foxes are a very resourceful predator,i did find a picture on the net of a supposed leopard kill of an antelope in Africa which had a large gaping wound on the side of it,s neck but this was the exception,generally speaking big cats such as leopards kill by throttling and this is the only deer killing method by big cats,whatever species they are,that i have come across here in Sussex.I was quite surprised to hear that a fox could pull down and kill a 35lb roe kid in fact i couldn,t see it happening at all until i remembered about fully grown in-lamb ewes being pulled down by supposedly packs of foxes up in Scotland during the very hard winters of the early 1960,s,mind you the hill foxes up there are a bit bigger than our ones.The trail camera pics i posted last month show a fox catching a squirrel,a very nippy customer indeed and various foxes have been known to specialise and become very expert in various predatory techniques,last year i watched a vixen bolt rabbits from buries for her 4 cubs on the downs near Lewes, a walk there the next day saw the team at the same caper again.It seems quite clear that the Woodchester carcases were the work of a rogue fox specialising in targeting roe young,most likely progressing up from the very young kids to the hefty,for a fox,35lb ones,foxes are well known to be the principle predator of 1 to 2 month old roe.A huge fox was shot last year weighing 28lb, a record i believe,not particularly fat just a massive animal but i don,t suspect such an animal was responsible for the deer killings,we will probably never know but it was more than likely just a normal fox which has specialised in taking down deer....<br /><br />Big cats have been in Sussex for many years but it,s only since the late 1980,s that they have been encountered with any degree of frequency to give the impression that they are an established presence.Numbers of big cats have only until recently been able to of been quantified however they don,t seem to of increased much if at all in the last 5odd years,in addition to this the estimated home range of any one of these big cats does appear to be in the region of 6oo sq.km and their territory size doesn,t seem to of been reduced.There must be several factors involved in this such as the ever reducing size of hunting habitat due to development,disturbance of cover by increased recreational use leading to less prey numbers and suitable ground for themselves.A succession of hard winters may also be a reason nor can disease spread by the feral domestic cat population be ruled out however i am sure that the principal factor hindering the increase in the big cat population is down to foxes.Foxes are very numerous in most parts and have loose territories that they patrol vigorously hunting and foraging for what they can find,they are in direct competition for the same resources as big cats ,discounting deer(Woodchester deer kills aside)and can roam all of their area several times a week,they have to to prevent repeateed incursions from other foxes.When they have exhausted one supply they are highly adaptable and can change over to something else and even revert to eating earthworms which account for a very large proportion of the diet.Big cats on the other hand literally move in on differing fox territory visiting only a handful of times a year at best and the rabbits they are after,the fowl they are stalking,the voles they are poking for, etc.etc. has already been severely got at by the local foxes in all likelihood and made wise in the process.There are times of feast of course when there is enough for everyone such as the baby rabbit boom in early spring but it,s the times of famine,the hungry gap of febuary/march that dictate eventual numbers of big cats and this is when they can switch over and target,catch and kill their number one competition,the red fox...<br /><br />In the autumn of 2010 i had been seeing a young roe doe with her first kid and they had a habit of lying up in the daytime amongst tall grasses right out in the open field,one october afternoon i saw a fox,not that big either,hassling the kid trying to have a go at it and very nearly did only for the doe to rush along to it stamping and kicking it,s hooves out forward,straight away the fox gave up and moved on.The young roe kid was still around the next day or 2 but after that dissapeared from the does side until a month later in november,the day before bonfire night,i found a small roe carcase,presumably the kid i had seen before with fox scat by it in the small copse next to the favoured roe lying up field.Presuming the doe had birthed in late may or june it would make it only around 3 months old but still at least twice the size of a fox.Strangely enough if i hadn,t seen the fox worrying the deer in the first place but then found the deer carcase i could of assumed that it might well of been the work of a big cat as one had been seen in the area at the time of death,the scat too was quite large for a fox but fox scat it certainly was.Well this was the largest roe that i had thought a fox would of been capable of pulling down until i simply Googled "fox kills deer"the other day and straight up came a report from New York state in America of a red fox killing a 35lb first year deer in someones garden.Not forgetting that American red foxes are the result of imports from England by hunting folk emigrating there a century or so back and so are of the same stock as our English ones this means that a red fox weighing around 12 to 15lb should be capable of ,in theory,actually killing a 35lb deer.News to me,but then they never cease to surprise me those most tenacious of beasts the fox......bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-61023424974265999212012-01-22T09:59:00.000-08:002012-02-06T12:13:15.573-08:00The way big cats hunt,catch,kill and eat deer in Sussex<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmQ7ee4s_upLXZarVoBBt4b2OMdKZ5JfHiXHHdA-5IayNcLQl1c9hH_XeMPlw47utUQHy4mKCs1Y_8PzWrk5vm-uYv6upVessbbDPcpslJBPNrtE1rYA_QauJZ5Iqc63XTe7CXK28eLikJ/s1600/PC120487.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmQ7ee4s_upLXZarVoBBt4b2OMdKZ5JfHiXHHdA-5IayNcLQl1c9hH_XeMPlw47utUQHy4mKCs1Y_8PzWrk5vm-uYv6upVessbbDPcpslJBPNrtE1rYA_QauJZ5Iqc63XTe7CXK28eLikJ/s400/PC120487.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5700517678180715698" /></a><br /><br /><br />The picture shows a fallow deer most likely hunted,caught and eaten by a big cat in the Ashdown forest in East Sussex.Note the fir tree on the left where evidence showed this was underneath where the big cat laid in wait for it,s victim.The leaves scuffed off the bank into the stream showed where the struggle was.It illustrates the ambush technique and the distances involved between where the big cat lied down and where the fallow would of been i.e.half way up or thereabouts of the stream bank......<br /><br />Big cats target deer in Sussex primarily from july to middish febuary,mostly 1st year roe are taken,sometimes 1st year fallow calves,rarely 2nd year roe and fallow and never mature fallow bucks whose huge rack of antlers would present an unsurmountable obstacle to overcome i suppose added to their great size,they truly are magnificent beasts,too much even for the powerful big cats.Roe kids spend their first year with their dams and when travelling the does usually go first followed at sometimes a little distance by the kids,occasionally they feed seperately but more rarely travel seperately.Fallow are herd animals proper but are often split into various groups depending on age, sex and relations but again usually the elder ones and/or the parents go first when moving as opposed to feeding.I have never found or heard of a muntjac kid or adult being attributed to being the prey of a big cat here in Sussex,maybe their thick necks and tank-like gait negates this.They have greatly increased their range throughout the county in the past decade or 2 but are by no means common in all places,they are though the third most common deer in Sussex.Far less common are red deer and their are only small pockets of these huge animals about,mostly in the far north east of Sussex,they are well out of range for big cats.Not so big,in fact i would of thought that the hare-like and tiny Chinese water deer could be taken by big cats although there are even fewer of these around perhaps numbering less than a hundred,someone once mistook one at first glance for a wallaby in Mid-Sussex a while back and last but not least the red deer-like sika are apparently in East Sussex, i,ve never seen one but i,m told are in similar numbers as the water deer,i.e not many at all.As i,ve said already roe and fallow are the bread and butter for Sussex big cats.....<br /><br />Big cats employ,to the best of my knowledge,3 main techniques to hunt deer that are ambush,stalking and coursing with the latter quite probably preceded by a "botched"stalk,it,is also highly likely that a big cat would actually come across a deer when it is pottering along the hedges and such like which is where the deer would be hiding up .The summer hunting consists of a degree of twilight stalking and i have several reports of big cats coursing deer at this time,very large big cats too which would suggest that it,s a tactic that has had a reasonable amount of success.So we have a big cat that is mooching in and out of cover gets wind of a deer or 2 either by scent,sight or sound then stalks then catches,if the stalk gets botched then it would give chase giving rise to witness reports of big cats coursing deer out of cover.Seeing as there are relatively fewer accounts of big cats stalking deer in these summer evenings it must be presumed that it most often goes on in the deep leaf laden cover of thick hedgerows or coppice type woods etc.Another reason why over manicured farms are not good for cats.Moonlit nights also offer good stalking oppurtunities and it,s thought that the finding one autumn a few years back near Lewes of a roe carcase in the middle of a stubble field was the result of an aborted stalk from the hedge with the roe fleeing into the field away from the cover that hid the cat and then followed a brief course with the cat catching it some 150 yards in the open,once into their stride though even a young roe should outstrip their feline pursuer,streamlined though they may be.There is no way that a big cat would spy it,s target in the distance and to then run it down cheetah-like,big cat versus deer courses have to be,in my mind,botched stalks or at the very least very close stalks then runs, a sort of cross between cheetah and leopard style.In other words the cat would of liked to of caught up with the deer easily to grab it,s throat but having been rumbled has decided to give chase knowing that this method has given it a degree of success in the past.I originally thought that accounts of big cats coursing deer through woods or whatever were young inexperienced cats trying their luck but evidence has shown in recent years that open ground chasing of deer has brought the cats that do this some success.....<br /><br />Onto ambushing now as in winter the cover has all but gone from a lot of places which gave the cats the cover they needed to hide themselves which enabled the summer stalks and this is where most of the evidence comes from as to how big cats catch and feed,i,m not saying they don,t stalk in winter at all but when they do it,s mostly at night under cover of darkness.This technique is for obvious reasons practised also at night and in winter when the nights are longer as ambushing is very time hungry as far as the cats are concerned.Twilght is also shorter.The time of estimated death of ambushed deer has also been at night which completes this theory so far and also carcases have been found at dawn still wet and red.Anyway,we have a big cat emerging late into dusk in more often winter from it,s daytime lair such as dense scrub or woodland,anywhere undisturbed,it will then at some point perhaps in the early evening approach it,s ambush point which can be,like the picture, by a stream crossing,some cover by a deer path intersection in a wood,thick hedge bottom and will then lie in wait for it,s prey to show.Like i said virtually all carcases have been the younger ones so the cat would let the doe or elder one/s pass,likely sensing an animals size by hearing the difference between it,s hoof clatter perhaps then rushing up to the kid from it,s hiding place,attacking just to the side of the front,grabbing the underneath of the throat with it,s bottom jaw and so clamping the windpipe with it,s stronger,the lower one,jaw.This angle of attack occurs at just about every kill i,ve seen where i,ve been able to judge the,if any,ambush point,in other words 45degrees from the deers muzzle.As the deer came up the bank from the stream the big cat rushed out from under the fir tree at this angle to give it the optimum grip.Suffocation follows.Haemmoraging inside the neck merely points to the pressure involved, since bruising can only occur before death and wasn,t actually the cause of death.Simple lack of air was.The roe kid would scrape the ground with it,s hooves a bit but animals caught in this way are practically helpless and the big cat would only be straining against it,s weight a bit,this is shown by corresponding hoof and paw prints found at kill sites,personally i have never found evidence of momentous struggles between cat and deer .It would also appear by this evidence(the distance between cat print and front deer hooves(see evidence page on bigcatsinsussex.co.uk) that the cats keep themselves well away from the strangling deer unlike say leopards from documentarys who look very up close and personal,roe hooves are sharp and will cut quite badly .The same technique is carried out on fallow however with roe they are usually half carried around 15 yards away sometimes to more cover sometimes to seemingly nowhere in particular.Fallow,by their bigger size are just about always eaten where they were killed or at least within a yard or 2.<br /><br />The now dead carcase is then opened up cleanly and precisely from the anus to the top of the rib cage,the colon,small and large intestines together with the paunch are taken out and often deposited a long distance away from the site,several 100 yards usually,as is the paunch.They could do this to put scavengers off the scent so they can eat without hassle.They will then presumably eat the offal first including the liver ,spleen,diaphram and heart is always gone as are the lungs,the ribs are eaten down nearly as far as the spine but usually not quite,the fillets are nibbled at and very occasionally shoulder meat is eaten as well as the muscle meat on the hind legs,strangely often the skin covering the belly is removed and carried off like the intestines but is sometimes eaten.The skeleton on a purely big cat consumed carcase should be whole and not separated.The overall appearance of the resulting leftover carcase is of a clean and slick operation as i,ve said many times before without the mess attributed to scavenger finds,it,s as if the body landed where it was found neatly butchered with barely no fur lying about,no blood,bile, nothing,at least this is what it,s like on fresh found bodys but as soon as foxes move in the chaos starts with roughly torn skin,jagged edges to bones,mess etc.etc.like the pic above.<br /><br />In all about an estimated 15 to 20 lb of meat bone and offal is consumed,rarely 25lb and in one case of a fallow found in june 30+lb of flesh had gonebut it was thought in this case that a mother and cub were responsible.In the areas where a carcase is found in the presumed home range of the smaller big cats of around 22" at the shoulder(lab sized or bit bigger than a labrador)the lower end of sub 20lb is eaten but noticeably increases a bit in winter and where the massive 26" tall(alsation etc.sized cats)above 20 to 25lb is eaten.This is done by analysis of the estimated weight of the original complete deer carcase and digestive tracts minus the meat, bone etc. you get the picture.My previous estimation therefore of the mass the more commonly seen 22" tall big cats at around 50lb could well be a slight underestimate as a 50lb beast could not surely eat 20lb at one sitting,well my 45lb dogs can eat 15lb of meat if they get the chance to steal it and carnivores like wolves and big cats are used to eating one heck of a lot at a time then not for quite a while.Maybe the 22" cats weigh around 60lb.So,the 26"cats eating 25lb of flesh,ie.our fallow hunters should be weighing in excess of 80 lb but at 1/3 of it,s body weight in food maybe 90lb plus seems more accurate.Date compiled on wild tigers showed that they could eat 100lb of flesh at one sitting then fast for many days,at a rough estimation of their body weight say 500lb would give 1/5th of it,s body weight.If say 20lb of flesh had been consumed at 1/5th this would give the big cat in question a body weight of 100lb and this is at a height of 22" maybe 23" at best.This is massive by any degree and is not correlated by the more streamlined shape of British big cats as compared to their counterparts like African leopards.Of course,i have included each and every carcase and most have had less than 20lb eaten,Clearly,i have only scratched the surface here and more research needs to be done with accurate necropsy reports undertaken,preferably under recorded vetinarian supervision.I had always assummed that weight for weight British big cats are taller than leopards due to their visibly sleeker and lighter frames but their greater food consumption at one sitting may suggest other facts like they consume more at one sitting,this is a complex subject but i,m sure that once reasonably understood could give reasonable estimations of size of individual big cats guaged on how much they had consumed of a carcase,very interesting indeed i think.....<br /><br />So much food from one kill is going to last a big cat quite a while and though it,s impossible to say that they haven,t snacked on smaller stuff in between ,in 2010 i found 2 carcases in neighbouring parishes(2 miles apart) with estimated times of death at being 5 to 6 days away from each other.The year before when snow was around kills were reported at the same place a week apart,week after week for many weeks which suggests that a major kill would last a cat from 5 to 7 days between meals.I know from experience that predators go on rolls,that is to say that they can exclusively target a certain prey item for extended periods using the same technique that has served them well,success breeds success so it,s by no means too much to theorise that a big cat would target deer week in week out until circumstances force it to change......<br /><br /><br />In writing this article i have compiled data from around a dozen most likely big cat deer kills found in Sussex that i have investigated over the years,i have ommited the info from plausible big cat kills from elsewhere in the country but realise that they may have slightly differing techniques to our Sussex cats.I have little 1st hand experience from elsewhere in the country....<br /><br />Many thanks go to Andy at Westcountrydeerservices.co.uk for his estimations of flesh amounts eaten ......bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-14009007326279059582012-01-12T15:57:00.001-08:002012-01-13T15:52:21.282-08:00Gloucestershire deer carcase swabbed for big cat DNAWhen this story broke there was much excitement here in Sussex among my colleages in the big cat world,not because that there was a deer carcase found in Gloucestershire that was thought to of been likely killed by a big cat as it,s too far away for any of us to relate it to our own research on our counties cats nor the fact that there were actually 2 found within walking distance,less than a handful of miles from each other which is not unheard of either.It was that the National Trust in their infinite wisdom had called in a scientist to DNA swab the carcase in order to find big cat DNA.For a large organisation to take an interest is one thing and to actually ,presumably ,finance the operation is another.A fair few deer carcases have been found in recent years in Sussex with a reasonable number of them thought to of been killed by a big cat,i have published a selection of some of them on bigcatsinsussex.co.uk and yet none have even undergone vetinarian analysis let alone DNA swabbing/testing.The reasons are really down to cost as we are self financed but also an over reliance by myself of on the spot self analysis with photographic evidence taking as well as additional witness verification.Personally i am not out to prove the existance of big cats to anybody,everyone is entitled to their opinions.I do not seek to gain evidence therefore of big cats being in the wild but evidence of their behaviour which is what i am interested in.Of course i would like to know exactly whether we have a pure bred leopard killing a deer,a sub-species, a hybrid or whatever but have gone down the hair sample analysis route.Swabbing of a carcase,as i understand it,involves the gathering of saliva left by the animal consuming the body and this wet substance being what it is prone to rapid decomposition hence the quick deteriation of the DNA.When a plausibly big cat deer kill is found the whole area is analysed to guage how the deer was initually caught then consumed.Other death factors must be eliminated before a big cat kill can be supposed like traffic then scavenged,wounded(by gun or other hazard)then scavenged,dog attack even,believe it or not,hoaxed.After looking at quite a few deer carcases over the years first impressions are usually spot on as the kill scenes have related factors common to all.<br /><br />Getting back to the West country deer kills i don,t want to shout down and spoil the party but the pictures i,ve seen through the media don,t point straight away as being big cat killed.The puncture wound for a start is something i just don,t come across,every big cat attributed deer kill has been aphyxiated not punctured by canine teeth(dogs can puncture necks though some do throttle too)there is a clear drag line from where presumably the deer was caught then consumed marked by bits of fur,foxes pull at a carcase to tear off flesh dragging it in the process.British big cats will lift up a deer by the neck once dead and effectively carry it a short way to consume it,usually to cover.A classic,uncontaminated big cat deer kill has the appearance of landing where it is having been neatly butchered.Lastly the whole carcase looks too messy,the bones edges are too jagged as is the fur line though the intestines are gone and a similar amount of flesh has gone the way a big cat would feed usually feed.Of course it could be a cat kill and foxes have moved in shortly afterwards i don,t know,it could be a feral dog kill,it could even be a young puma kill,all i have to go one are a couple of pictures and not even the 50 or so that i would of liked to look at.I haven,t examined the deer,others have like the esteemed big cat book author Rick minter and they thought it worthwhile to call in the scientific artillery and have it swabbed.It,s easy for me to sit here 150 miles away and say this and that when the only real way is to be there myself,put on the gloves and get messy,filming the whole process,taking pictures. <br /><br /><br />UPDATE;I have now seen pictures (kindly sent by Rick Minter)of when the carcase was far fresher and they do give the impression of being a big cat kill for the reasons as explained above ie.clean cut,no messy drag line etc.It is also quite clear that the deer carcase in question is that of a 1st year roe(kid) and most roe deer kills attributed to big cats are of kids.Unfortunately the ones available in the mainstream media were of a carcase several days old and scavengers had indeed got at it.....<br /><br /><br />The lab results should be publically available for view within a fortnight,half the country waits with baited breath.........<br /><br /><br />Big Cat May Be On The Loose In Gloucestershire After Mutilated Deer Discovery | UK News | Sky News http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16147397.html<br /><br /><br /><br />http://uk.news.yahoo.com/deer-carcass-sparks-big-cat-inquiry-152424817.htmlbigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-58423886005783709782012-01-01T08:55:00.000-08:002012-01-03T05:03:50.903-08:00MOD & Police big cat body cover up/conspiracy theoryRick Minters new big cat book "Big cats:facing Britains wild predators" has opened an old wound so to speak of a MOD cover up of important big cat evidence with mention of the big cat carcase seen taken into the RAF Fylingdales base in Yorkshire way back in 2004.I can,t remember which big cat researcher first broke the story then but i do remember the conspiracy theories that the story added weight to.Simply put,a carcase of a big cat was seen on the main road that goes past the base presumably hit by a car.The security guards at the gate called for a digger which took the body into the base and since then past employees have stated that the big cat carcase is being held there.This may or may not be true,i don,t know but i would of thought that if there was a carcase it would of been better for it scientifically to be transported to Porton Down in Wiltshire where the appropiate facilities would be available for any scientific analysis let alone proper (freezer)storage facilities.I realise that all major military bases have freezer capacity to store bodies in the case of say a terrorist strike or similar but it wouldn,t be the place to store the much sought after body of a big cat,in any case RAF Fylingdales is an extremely small base perched on the north Yorkshire moors engaging in space surveilance with a very small staff of highly specialised technical personal numbering around 80 backed up by a small civilian contingent such as cleaners,cooks etc and i don,t expect for one second that there is scope for animal research or any storage facilities there,the base used to be famous for the golfball shaped radar stations towering over the moor that are no longer there and the Google maps show a small research station coupled with the housing residences for staff,some from America as the satellite tracking info is shared with the USA.In a case such as this Porton Down or any of the murky private animal research labs would be Britains answer to Roswell not a small RAF base such as this.There are a multitude of private labs dotted around the country equipped to deal with any proposed big cat carcases but the many university research labs would ,i imagine be firmly kept out of the loop for they would be open to breaches of confidentiality quite easily.<br /><br />In 2007 i teamed up briefly on a wildlife survey for a mammal study group with an extremely talented bio-chemist on board who had worked for some years at the research facilities at Porton Down,over a series of drinks one night which made him temporarily forget his signing of the Official Secrets Act,necessary for all government employees engaged in top secret activities and legally binding,he mentioned in some detail the fuss caused on the rare occasion when a big cat carcase was brought in to the department next to where he was working.His work capacity was to test the internal fluid contents such as blood,bile etc.The dates i was not told nor where the carcases came from apart from one which was called a Moor cat in his departement-speak,presumably being brought off one of the West country moors like Dartmoor.They were though variable enough in type and colour to be differentiated between each other.He backed up my ideas that the large cats seen all over the country were a sub-species of leopard and even went on to expand that there were 3 or 4 different types,whether or not i was being fed a pack of lies washed down with a lot of scotch is open to question however I might add to the broth that Porton Down has been involved in highly top secret affairs and is reputed to research into various diseases like rabies and anthrax having large and state of the art research facilities covering animal and bio-chemical study areas amongst others and is extremely secure with armed guards posted and no open media or public access whatsoever so impossible to verify any rumours of big cat bodies being kept there.The site is massive,consisting of as much underground as there is up top, at over 7000 acres is the size of a small town and so secretive that no single government department has complete knowledge of what goes on there,a lot of the multitude of various military and civil research departments are only interlinked with others in their immediate study areas.Porton Down being the prime candidate for holding any big cat carcases jumps to the top of the list when it is realised that in 1996 ufologist Tony Dodd speculated that alien bodies allegedly found at the site of a ufo crash in the Beryn mountains in Wales had been taken to Porton Down,the sheer impossibilty of access to the site to prove or disprove the theory only accelerated the conspiracy theories.If there ever was a big cat carcase that needed to be safely tucked away from prying eyes then there could be no safer place than this one,however in the past various big cats have been caught like Felicity the puma and a lynx in London,the latter of which ended up at the Natural History musuem i understand,these never were kept secret so why should one from Yorkshire be?As the majority of police forces recognise the existance of big cats in the wild any cover ups must be the result of knee jerk decisions taken at the time of events happening rather than overall national policy.The plot thickens.<br /><br />Here in Sussex we have had our own cover-ups the most famous of which was when armed police were called to the sighting of a very large panther size black cat seen in bushes at the playing fields in Peacehaven just off the Tye.This was in the autumn of 2003 if i remember and the whole area was sealed off with the police helecopter hovering above,a team of armed to the teeth police officers scouring the area and another team as back up along the track in a van.Apparently the original witness had called the local police who on seeing the cat for themselves called for back up.On being questioned as to what the drama was about the police told they were after an escaped criminal!I have 3 witness statements that mention a large black cat being seen there as well as one from a council employee and was asked at the time to "keep quiet" to prevent public panic.To be honest i would of thought that an escaped criminal nutter would be more to be afraid of than a wild cat large as it may be.In fact there were and still are regular big cat sightings in the Telscombe and Peacehaven area but none since have caused such a government departemental panic.Actually,these days the police are more often seeking the help and intellectial input of big cat researchers such as myself and others up and down the country to clear up cases where damage to livestock or property for example may be the work of a big cat or some enterprising vandal or miscreant.The police sometimes receive calls from distressed members of the public who have seen a big cat for the first time and worry for the safety of themselves and children and so the police can be glad to put them in touch with someone who is used to dealing with the aftermath of a big cat sighting in all it,s forms.These days we as "big cat people" are treated as some kind of agency to be called upon at times of need and are usually glad to be of service in allaying peoples fears,this in turn frees up valuable police time to be spent on more pressing cases..<br /><br />As for the conspiracy theory of bodies of big cats being swept up off the countries roads and whisked to shady government labs like Porton Down and others does sound a little far fetched at first,for a start the council employees charged with road kill picking up duties would have to be briefed and having worked at this capacity myself once i never heard of this being mentioned,i did once though hear of a very large cat being found squashed only to hear it had been unceremoniously put in a black plastic sack and sent off to the incinerator with the other bodies of wildlife and pets falling victim to traffic as contrary to often held opinion council workers can be hard pressed and over worked.However if any bodies of big cats were to be found reaching their way to say Porton Down by one way or another then it would normally be kept quiet as we,the British public,are undeniably kept as mushrooms by the state,in the dark and fed on s*@t,which is the principal reason why any conspiracy theory would materialise.We have the media to keep us informed on the goings on that might interest us and i use the term media in it,s loosest possible form to include as in this case book authors,bloggers,tweeters,big cat researchers etc......<br /><br />Watch these spaces!<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />www.darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/news/9444103.MoD_dismisses_big_cat_cover_up_claims<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://britishbigcats.blogspot.com/2011/12/mod-dismisses-big-cat-cover-up-claims.html#links">BIG CATS IN BRITAIN: MoD dismisses big cat cover up claims</a>bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-5903156072879620682011-12-11T04:33:00.000-08:002012-01-24T06:56:29.842-08:00Territory size of a Sussex big cat/600+ square km<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMcAIMvL9wFtUYRxhBZ_pkZfByJtcnjGBHYAMqbs7ghPjTluAOGxKzmzKPHQKBsDl0XPr80g4T25K5RzW0EvojwUyk_Fv9qOlAcUP9M7K7vNQ4qkUKSfgYwhwZiKeFKVLKk7o-tmdAxmz1/s1600/P1260703.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMcAIMvL9wFtUYRxhBZ_pkZfByJtcnjGBHYAMqbs7ghPjTluAOGxKzmzKPHQKBsDl0XPr80g4T25K5RzW0EvojwUyk_Fv9qOlAcUP9M7K7vNQ4qkUKSfgYwhwZiKeFKVLKk7o-tmdAxmz1/s400/P1260703.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5684854673015849570" /></a><br /><br />26 sightings this year in 21 parishes add more weight to gaining more of an understanding of the yearly range of a typical big cat in Sussex.I say typical because it is really a study of a large part of West Sussex in particular 4 big cats 1 of which is far larger than the others and has several defining features that set it apart from the others ,this has made it possible that when a sighting comes in i can usually differentiate this cat from it,s nearest neighbours,added to this i work on the farm where this cat has been very active at times and know all the surrounding country fairly intimately.In this way when sightings come in they are plotted on a map together with the habits observed by the witnesses.Big cats act differently to each other in their behavior,for example when seen one might slink away while another typicaly looks at it,s observer then runs hell for leather away to cover.Carcases found too have similarities and differences depending on which cat has killed it so a pattern starts to emerge on where which cat is at certain times of the year and what it is feeding on,paw prints too ,whilst they are found far less frequently,are as distinctive apart as human fingerprints.Colour wise all these 4 cats are black but the shapes of their bodies can be described differently however it must be remembered that body shape of a cat changes depending on what it,s up to.A friend who lives not too far away has photographed this big cat the results of which i have published on bigcatsinsussex.co.uk and has been now used in the recent,highly acclaimed big cat book by Rick Minter,in other words people from up and down the country have looked at the picture and thought it to be the genuine article.So,we have had the best chance for years to guage the territory size of this,one the countys biggest big cats.....<br /><br />A lot of the data already gathered has been published for public perusal here on these blogs but also on the website with the exception of sensitive material and sightings evidence that is location private for one reason or another like the farmer concerned wanted his place kept out of it.I have attempted to analyse this data as thoroughly as i can to produce a series of findings which can be repeated elsewhere dependant on habitat type and prey numbers.What is quite clear is that the findings so far confirm some previous data inputs and surprise or turn on their head others.<br /><br />To start with as a general rule of thumb a big cat will be seen in an area of a clump of parishes once at a certain time of year then maybe again very often a month later then possibly,if the hunting is good,a couple of months after that or instead may visit several months later.This has been noticed over the years.In other words it will only either actively hunt or pass through 2 or 3 times a year but usually in the same seasons.This has been observed by myself and others on countless occasions to be now almost a rule of thumb.Big cats are not scavengers but hunters and to survive can only predate loosely in any given area before their prey gets wise,coupled with this they have competition with others like foxes who share at times similar hunting techniques and prey like rabbits and foxes are often well established in the areas that a big cat may be in.As regards to deer they are usually the younger ones taken,first year fawns,not the adult roe and so there,s a limited number of these taken.So we can see here at a glance that a big cat would need a much more vast and varied habitat than it,s most similar rival a fox.<br /><br />With every rule of thumb in nature there is an exception and our principal cat of study shares this with the others in that it has an area/s where it,s seen far more regularly than in other places.It has areas that are the edge of it,s range and on reaching these it is forced to turn in for geographical reasons.For our cat it,s the major coastal,downland towns and it,s here that it,s seen more regularly in fact 12 of these clumps of sightings where it,s been seen this year have been at these places but i feel it,s a mistake to regard them as a pattern that is repeated elsewhere but the data has just not come in,in other words big cats in Sussex are repeatedly being seen at turning points of their range whereas at other points they are habitually seen/frequent much less.A breakdown of these turning points have seen the cat hug the coastal downs for it to then turn inland and head for the general Weald area.The downs as a whole is mostly open,as the photo above shows,but has pockets and in some places has clumps of cover like scrub extending into very extensive woods,it has been noted to hunt successfully on certain parts of the downs but spends a larger proportion of it,s time on the Weald where prey numbers and hunting cover are extremely higher.What has been noted especially this year is the effect that land clearance and the resultant stock fencing has on a big cats ability to hunt.The recent leap in lamb and beef as well as corn prices has made farming a little more worthwhile were it not for the corresponding jump in compound,fuel and other costs and it,s had the effect of a new type of enclosure of the land.Stock fencing put up to accommodate the countys increasing number of sheep and cows,in particular wire topped sheep netting against closely trimmed hedges makes for poor cat hunting places as does the recent fad of large enclosures of deer fenced ground commonly called by it,s misnomer of rewilding.It,s a fact that Sussex is a lot less wild than it was say even 5 years ago,farms have had to make more use of the same amount of ground just to keep going and this has had the knock on effect of pushing off the Sussex big cats from ground they previously frequented.Cut down or even just reduce the width of a hedge,add a stock fence and you have removed deer habitat, greatly restricted their movements and in turn their predator the big cat will visit somewhere else.<br /><br />So,to the square size of our big cats range or at least to what is known for the months of december and january the data is very thin to say the least but it,s thought it heads north to the Wealden sandstone ridge where the denser forest hides it from observation.I said in the previous post on spring movements that it,s range extends to around 140 sq.km however there was around 12 days of the month where it wasn,t being accounted for,this year however fresh info has come in which rather reaffirms what was previously thought but couldn,t be confirmed in that it did indeed range a lot further west than stated and most likely a fair bit further north east which makes it 18 kilometres north to south and 26 km east to west making this around 468 sq.km.This area has now been confirmed by exhaustive analysis of fresh info coming in this year and if we couple this with the highly likely deep winter supposed range in the far north we have a figure of 638 sq.km.This is huge,far bigger than previously thought and i must admit i,ve gone over everything so many times to check but i keep getting the same results.I realise that anyone reading this will confer and compare these results to range sizes of big cats like leopards on foreign soils who can move around in areas a quarter of this size but it must be remembered that Sussex is heavily populated with large and small towns peppering the country and fracturing suitable cat habitat.Large house building programmes have gone up on the edges of nearly every urban area reducing former farmland in Sussex by several thousand acres every year.<br /><br />Although these results have not been conducted with the radio collaring that backs up results found abroad by the various big cat groups and i rue the day that this would ever happen over here,we are superbly set up in this country in having a vast amount of witness data to analyse that is completely absent from,say,Ingwe in Africa which a far lower human population.It is open to sceptism quite rightly in that no genetic analysis has taken place and that too much emphasis is on witness reports and carcase investigation and not enough on spoor but that is just the way it is.In fact this area size does concur with similar sizes that the other big cats from across Sussex would have given the number that it is thought are here(at least 12 no more than 18) and this territory size is necessary given the prey needed to keep them going throughout the year.In fact if we take a 600 odd square km block it does fit in very nicely with the other cats areas.It does all seem to fit.These results cannot though be compared to other areas of the country i think as Sussex has a peculiar range of habitat and soils that restrict or enhance big cat movements depending on the type of season but i,m sure that it,s relatively typical in the large amount of ground needed by our apex predators the big cats.....bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-18987064491919752442011-11-21T11:39:00.001-08:002011-12-01T10:34:03.827-08:00Closet yet big cat sighting in West Sussex/pictures<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpDfhmYrtH7U0m0tXUW2r2UW_6y-1cBqAvaG_uXe8gkIN7hW5NPh7y1aUyeVdYu2itsFkphUXleY5hCvjAA4N6SQX_BFBxig05l4_MWjAjJPEqiYb61I0M-AdYpO-Sx3NrGXq8bo9eK-YC/s1600/20.11.11+Copyright+Carol+Cowley+all+rights+reserved.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpDfhmYrtH7U0m0tXUW2r2UW_6y-1cBqAvaG_uXe8gkIN7hW5NPh7y1aUyeVdYu2itsFkphUXleY5hCvjAA4N6SQX_BFBxig05l4_MWjAjJPEqiYb61I0M-AdYpO-Sx3NrGXq8bo9eK-YC/s400/20.11.11+Copyright+Carol+Cowley+all+rights+reserved.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677537243161975890" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPcCfSN9NiRd3Om7e_PoZnR8aqvC4KFoIVJVJNdRiMPLj2fpmaZkCoRfv1J20rKE9R19c_SDQIbi13I8-g75BL9jsoiugECOpXT975QZvI04of_Ni8Ao9NeMdkJI8-MkMEvJ4sJ2e7RZmg/s1600/20.11.2011+Copyright+Carol+Cowley+all+rights+reserved+run.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPcCfSN9NiRd3Om7e_PoZnR8aqvC4KFoIVJVJNdRiMPLj2fpmaZkCoRfv1J20rKE9R19c_SDQIbi13I8-g75BL9jsoiugECOpXT975QZvI04of_Ni8Ao9NeMdkJI8-MkMEvJ4sJ2e7RZmg/s400/20.11.2011+Copyright+Carol+Cowley+all+rights+reserved+run.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677536657302212050" /></a><br /><br />The above 2 photos of a big cat in West Sussex( copyright Carol Cowley all rights reserved)taken by Carol Cowley at a sighting recently have stirred up controversy amongst the big cat research world.Inherant sceptism is a necessary trait in this game with each separate shred of evidence subject to intense scrutiny.I am the first to admit that the first picture has some of the appearances of being a dog were it not for the fact that the tail length obviously belongs to no known canine breed,the ears too are exactly the shape quoted by most of the big cat sighting witnesses in being more rounded than pointed.The hang of the right paw also looks a bit cat like to me.All this being said,if i was presented with these pictures and didn,t know the history behind this ongoing investigation conducted by Carol Cowley and myself and took them as being the sole piece of evidence i too would err on the side of caution and might be tempted to proclaim them as being photos of a dog,albeit a strange one at that and i might also explain the cat-like features as being mere tricks of the light and not the real deal so to speak.<br /><br />In fact,any evidence cannot be looked at in isolation, think,but has to be part of a whole series of different perspectives on other things too like was the sighting/photo in an area where big cat activity has taken place?15 sightings from multiple witnesses this year alone.This cat in fact has been studied intensely over the last 3 years and probably a lot more if it,s as old as we think it is.Was it doing what would of been expected of it?A handful of occasions were when the cat was not disturbed immediatly and was observed doing just this thing that is just poking and possibly sniffing about which is what cats do.Was there any other evidence?Well,not on this occasion but on others and at nearby locations paw prints,deer,fox,badger and bird carcases attributed as big cat kills were found and out of the deer, fallow carcases which can only be pulled down by a very big cat,all this has been published on these blogs and the website.A final question would be on the integrity of the witness,in other words was it a hoax?Carol Cowley has produced several pictures now of this big cat all taken with her little compact camera one of which especially has been published in a forthcoming book on big cats by the acclaimed West Country based author Rick Minter and has been verified as being a photo of a big cat by various other researchers up and down the country.Her other work has produced the only deer carcase attributed to a big cat this year as well as investigating numerous sightings and uncovering information of immense value to gleaning knowledge of big cat behaviour.<br /><br />Here i have offered a little background material to back up these pictures for public scrutiny however it,s not my intention to convince anyone of whether these pictures are genuine or for that matter any other big cat pics nor any other evidence produced.Everyone is entitled to their opinion.If anything,all material is published for public information only though it has to be said the agenda is to prove how essential big cats are to the natural balance of things and seek only to avoid conflict with humans.Scrutiny is valued however to offset home-spun conclusions which can spin off onto tangents too wild to be even plausible.So,given what i,ve mentioned here the above pics appear to me to be very much the real deal,taken obviously,not in isolation.....bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-26412345830537073532011-08-24T09:34:00.000-07:002011-08-24T09:38:48.875-07:00Black fur found at deer kill site<iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/M7GDKXEY3XA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-63909121800134857382011-08-24T08:39:00.000-07:002011-08-24T09:33:06.258-07:00When no evidence is evidence?One of the delights in life is to got to pastures new,have a look around at what,s not been looked at before,at least by oneself and with every turn of gaze something of interest beckons to be studied with eyes glimmering with expectation.Not on this occasion though for a different yearning gripped,a desire to check out a place where a spectacularly "strange" event had taken place some 9 months previously to see if any new trace of something could be gleaned,if not then this could mean possible confirmation of previous theories.Let me explain.
<br />Last autumn was notable for a glut in deer carcase finds that were attributed to big cat kills,4 in 3 weeks,5 in total.One in particular stood out as being the finest example i,ve ever come across a first year roe neatly eaten with no mess like fur or blood scattered and in an area of high big cat activity,a picture of it is on the evidence page of bigcatsinsussex.co.uk.The spot where the deer was caught was clear with neck fur found and scraping of the hooves as it aphyxiated in the cats grip,then marks in the ground visible where it was dragged for 15ft over a small stream to be consumed that night last november.Checking out the nearby barbed wire fence i retrieved a decent clump of 1 & 1/2 inch long soft,black fur.A trail camera was set up but showed only the usual foxes,badgers,tame black cat and a few weeks later a return of the roe deer.The tame black cat however was short haired of a length of 3/4 inch i might add.
<br />Anyhow,sending off a portion of the fur found to be examined by the eminent Dr.Legg of the Booth museum in Brighton the results came back as belonging to the domestic cat variety,so no leopard involved in the roe deer murder mystery we should concur.Not to be outdone i also e-mailed a photo of the carcase to a big cat study group in Africa who replied "definitely eaten and probably killed by a big cat,most likely a leopard" they replied "where did you find it?" to my answer of in Sussex i received no further comment.In fact,i didn,t actually find the carcase myself but got to it a little after the fact and coincidentely the daughter of the landowners is actually involved with a camera safari group in South Africa and originally thought of a big cats involvement with the kill but i digress.
<br />Well ,enough of the history of this case and more on the news,for a start there has been no further sightings in the immediate area,i checked the fence again bearing in mind that this is now 9 months down the line and not a single strand of black fur was found despite going to the lengths of examing each and every barb with my trusty magnifying glass remembering that last year 2 different barbs had this long fur on them indicating at least 2 passes by whatever animal had left it with the large amount of left indicating also multiple passes.Apparently the local tame cats are still active around the place.So,getting to the point the fence at 18" is too high for a domestic cat to shed fur on it,this is indicated by none left on it and the height of said cats to be 12" high at the shoulder.
<br />The facts as we have them:something big and silent had killed,dragged and ate that deer in a big cat-like way.Something left it,s fur on the fence which was longer than the tame cats present.Something had to be big enough for it,s body to scrape an 18"high fence and that something made multiple passes.That something had a domestic cat ancestry as prooved.It seems to me that that something had made multiple passes under the fence before it succeeded in it,s quest for prey that much seems likely but the most intriguing thing about this conflicting evidence is the domestic cat results,this has happened to me before and i suppose i,m meant to be disapointed that it wasn,t a leopard but i,m not.My quest is to uncover the truth by discovering and examining the evidence however conflicting that may seem and not to pigeon- hole theories to slot in where they could be expected to go.It would be expected that for a cat to be large enough to pull down an animal the size of a young roe deer(about 70lb) it should be at least of leopard size and ancestry.In fact,bizarrely enough i have a multiple witness report given to me from a much respected big cat researcher from the West Country which states that they saw a very large,alsation sized big black cat close up and mentioned that the eyes had slits,we all know that tame cats eyes retreat to slits like foxes whereas leopards go to dots like dogs........
<br />bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-75164332104038372112011-08-17T10:46:00.001-07:002011-08-17T10:46:56.753-07:00Campers see big cat in Sussex woods/interview<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Sr6dLaA-7gA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-9148329717629396732011-06-05T07:49:00.000-07:002011-06-05T09:22:29.928-07:00Sheep are not eaten by big cats in Sussex<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSczjQfUSd9-aFHHwby2_u9M8Okcw6mfUnsb9S6TNNKnbnW1ZVg5vvTq05qA8WqhSVrwhW-f5DQCvU51WafZqNM2HvrusYQtJQaRddQVfFtHe1JTaRpUcDmTnbyMfaDpJ5LCrjcnqZBWE4/s1600/P4191116.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 400px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5614748575780829794" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSczjQfUSd9-aFHHwby2_u9M8Okcw6mfUnsb9S6TNNKnbnW1ZVg5vvTq05qA8WqhSVrwhW-f5DQCvU51WafZqNM2HvrusYQtJQaRddQVfFtHe1JTaRpUcDmTnbyMfaDpJ5LCrjcnqZBWE4/s400/P4191116.JPG" /></a> The Sussex big cats do not target either sheep or lambs.This statement has provoked much debate among the local big cat researchers and it,s fair to say i,ve had to defend these words quite vigorously.The principal point against these facts is that out of a commercial flock of say 6000 breeding ewes that would produce say around 11000 lambs,would,say,the sheperd/ess miss a few that were taken overnight with no trace and strat worrying what happened to them or would the sheer numbers involved mean that in all likelihood a dozen here or half a dozen there not be noticed at all.<br />Modern sheep farming in Sussex is a highly mobile operation with in reality all flocks are actually split up into hundreds of ewes spaced out wherever the lambing fields are with the stockmen actually doing rounds of many of these fields in a single day.Many rent the grazing and only put what each field or group of fields can handle.This means that they are more easily kept an eye on and believe it or not anything amiss is usually noted promptly.Fencelines are quad biked along as are bramble or scrub patches looking for fleece either stuck in the wire or on thorns that would be a telltale sign of predator attack.<br />Foxes do take lambs on occasion as do badgers however fox kills are easily noticed as they tend to go for orphaned or triplet new borns not yet acquanted with their surrogate ewes or the ones caught up in the said fences or brambles.In "08 i think it was we had a 2" fall of snow in april around lambing time on the downs and the resulting wind blown drifts "drowned" 50 or so new borns,the quick thaw revealed that the local foxes got wind of these easy meals with themselves cubs to feed and then went on to have a go at the lambs as they got a little older which is unusual as often foxes just go for the afterbirth.Foxes tend to drag a carcase a short way while they are eating it and the evidence of their kills is easy to notice as much fleece is lying around and the site tends to be messy.The messiest are the badgers though and these have the strentgh to drag the lambs into deep cover often squeezing then through the sheep netting.All the shepherds i know or have spoken to would notice any of these goings on and it would appear by what i,ve been told so far that lambs taken by either foxes or badgers would be well down on previous years with only a couple reporting any problems and neither of these involve big cats.At the South of England show next weeks i,ll have a chance to chat to a few others and find out more.In fact, like deer,lamb carcases are never carried very far away.Take the Telscombe lamb kills saga from last year where a big cat definitely had been killing the lambs,every carcase was found in the surrounding scrub and was consumed there,the bodys didn,t just mysteriously vanish and all were immediately noticed by the farmer.Even up to the 20 kilo lambs which are a heavy load for the bit bigger than a labrador big cat that was seen amongst the sheep at night with lamps to carry over the fences and it appeared that it had copied the badgers in pulling the bodies through the netting.I had never seen anything like it before which made the exception rather than the rule.<br />So,would a few lambs missing not be noticed occasionally by a particularly hard pressed farmer?Well,maybe for a short while in the uplands up north where say black faced sheep drop their young without much problem and little help from the sheperd but here too from what i,ve been told they are very much on the ball as their foxes really do take lambs on a regular basis but here in the more sheltered south the favoured meaty crosses can sometimes struggle to give birth and all available hands will be on deck to help.Every ewe is tagged and the numbers of lambs noted,this is rudimentary stockmanship to guage which are the best breeders and when they are moved off the lambing fields any and exact shortfall of numbers will be noticed.I checked this out last year with sheperds and found out that as usual all casualties were accounted for,of course i can,t speak to everyone but if anyone knows any different then please tell me?<br />In addition to this any flock that is continually harrased either at night or by day is extremely noticeable by their owner who will find out the cause pronto,it just so happens that like foxes big cats suss out potentially new hunting oppurtunities well before they go in for the kill so to speak and will be seen in the fields amongst the sheep at night before any lambing takes place,this so rarely happens i can count the occasions happening on one hand.<br />It is my opinion, weighted by all the available evidence,that on the very rare occasion for lambs to be taken by a big cat that firstly the evidence is plain to see and only when it has cubs to feed and for some reason the natural food like the rabbits has been denuded.There is no evidence to the contrary,if there was then i think i would be the first to say it.A healthy scepticism and constant questioning of the facts helps us all understand big cat behaviour that much better and to analyse what we know or think we know already but there is drawing the line between supposition and fact by examining the evidence.It is often supposed that a sheep carcase is found by a member of the public and just because a big cat has been seen in the area 1 and 1 makes 5 in that the conclusion will be that a big cat has killed the said sheep,it then gets reported to the press and supposition becomes fact overnight without any analysis of the carcase,investigation of the scene or any of the photos,if any,made available for public scrutiny.When on the odd occasion it does happen for real it all gets blown out of proportion.<br />Looking for evidence of big cats being anywhere beyond the usual witness statements is extremely difficult and very trying on the patience as very little if any is found when we know full well a big cat has been very active in an area,it can be tempting when looking for clues to jump to conclusions in our haste for some sort of evidence but looking around sheep fields for sheep carcases will only prove in the long run ,i,m sure,that the title of this piece is the normal current of affairs........bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-82131979757170756822011-05-15T10:17:00.000-07:002011-05-15T11:08:21.460-07:00Sussex big cats do prey on badgers<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNh40WyA3s8mB7OVZgKt_kSozllEIkYeHZq35tHrRBT4WFjbUAHO5xN_2S7vOapXlRbb8P1gvMg0zAXtMkzjx_JlMXva2d07DrIFV0MpjKsxVjh-Ba7VA9zVm2IKPslu7Z-oR5PdCFpEvF/s1600/PICT0124.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 400px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5606994728861765090" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNh40WyA3s8mB7OVZgKt_kSozllEIkYeHZq35tHrRBT4WFjbUAHO5xN_2S7vOapXlRbb8P1gvMg0zAXtMkzjx_JlMXva2d07DrIFV0MpjKsxVjh-Ba7VA9zVm2IKPslu7Z-oR5PdCFpEvF/s400/PICT0124.JPG" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div>The evidence that Sussex big cats prey on badgers is stacking up.Firstly,the young badger skull found in march was at a sighting of a big cat seen going up a tree at night.The witness stated that he heard a terrific racket like several cats fighting and,worried about his own cat being outside,went out armed with a lamp shining it around the field to see a very large black,alsation sized cat running away towards the nearby wood and go up one of the trees.</div><br /><br /><div>Last year while investigating the Telscombe sheep kills a partly eaten badger carcase was reported to me by the farmer,cause of death unknown,however there was intense big cat activity going on there at the time,this shouldn,t be a victim of circumstance i know but it,s still interesting nonetheless.</div><br /><br /><div>A few years previously further east in the county a witness had heard a terrific screaming noise she described as like a cat fight only louder,deeper and more violent sounding,the next morning a badger carcase was found in the garden partially eaten.</div><br /><br /><div>I have never heard a badger make more of a sound than the pig-like grunting noises it makes when rooting about for food however i remember from somewhere that they can make a terrible ,blood curdling screaming sound that sounds like "6 cats fighting together" although i would of thought that if a big cat was taking down a badger the throat grip that they prefer would of stifled any screams,not so it seems.</div><br /><br /><div>In the past year of wildlife surveys and trail camera set ups in areas of intense big cat activity a distinct lack of,especially young,badgers has been noted and this is contrary to observers in other areas who have noted no notable decline in their local badger populations.</div><br /><br /><div>Anyhow,i contacted Johnathen Mc.Gowen from all the way over in Dorset(see his very informative website here <a href="http://www.thenaturalstuff.co.uk/">http://www.thenaturalstuff.co.uk/</a> ) to see if he had come across any evidence of big cats preying on badgers down in his neck of the woods and he replied "I very rarely find any evidence of large cats eating badgers but... my first sighting was of a puma stalking a 6 month old badger cub.... i have seen several photos of cat eaten badger carcasses and found remains of such in my study areas... along with several eyewitness accounts from people who have seen (big)cats killing badgers...I think that they prefer deer,rabbits then foxes and lastly badgers."This was very valuable information from Johnathen Mc.Gowen as Dorset is around a 100 miles away and shows that badgers as prey in Sussex could not be just a purely local phenonemon.</div><br /><br /><div>Well,i haven,t seen a badger carcase myself yet that could be attributed to a big cat kill like i have with deer and fox carcases but things do certainly seem to be fitting together even the fact that i found the skull in march which is the "hungry gap"time of year for big cats in Sussex.Without a body there is no murder but i found a skull so it,s a start to be going along with,a carcase is the best evidence but i must admit that i,m still very surprised that badgers fall prey to anything seeing as how tough they are.Keeping an open mind is the best way to explore new (to me) possibilities........</div>bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-36226325097846153202011-04-20T07:03:00.000-07:002011-04-20T07:22:17.520-07:00Is this the tail tip of a big cat?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHkJltEhyOWIjYQP97EYG2SPZxk-8yMAsAwXZLTRyFFdZBVLAJenMiR__24ZJtrSnBwys_8XaKR6tV-AJipUHc_NQBQHfWrTNVu0qFS_dB3XH4pu8HMKhmI1CYmBhpq48ndeSu1pz22hN-/s1600/PICT0881.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597666856527718802" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHkJltEhyOWIjYQP97EYG2SPZxk-8yMAsAwXZLTRyFFdZBVLAJenMiR__24ZJtrSnBwys_8XaKR6tV-AJipUHc_NQBQHfWrTNVu0qFS_dB3XH4pu8HMKhmI1CYmBhpq48ndeSu1pz22hN-/s400/PICT0881.JPG" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><div>When i first checked these pictures way back in febuary the cam had been triggered by something out of shot.The field of view of trail cameras is very narrow and this isn,t unusual,noticing this black streak at the bottom of the (second)picture i thought it may of been a smudge on the lens,again not unusual however a few weeks later i found a badger skull and then clawmarks up a tree(already blogged.Then,2 further sightings one of which the same night and 3 fields away certainly increased the odds of this tail tip belonging to a big cat.The angle is right as big cats do either carry their tail in a slight curve like this or more of a S shape.Chats to fellow big cat researchers revealed that they could see the possibilities as well.As researchers we are a naturally sceptical breed but this is a necessary trait to eliminate all other possibilities in order to confer that something is evidence of a big cat.When flicking the picture to and throw with the second one some sort or black shape is there but it is of course possible that the tail tip belongs to a black feral cat but scaled with a foxes brush <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7x8QK-fk0oIoCzpnuwTEDmp-sLX8wZ0Wh5wE0eThCdYAdFkLcS2pdPVkpcSsbGsm0u_HywyIS57fp0TiH5VMvF0ynJcvYdvVdK0hdgaLPajqBpHJfDUHAuPS6BTuTy8kPB0vSS4Bu_iI5/s1600/PICT0880.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5597666554029474306" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7x8QK-fk0oIoCzpnuwTEDmp-sLX8wZ0Wh5wE0eThCdYAdFkLcS2pdPVkpcSsbGsm0u_HywyIS57fp0TiH5VMvF0ynJcvYdvVdK0hdgaLPajqBpHJfDUHAuPS6BTuTy8kPB0vSS4Bu_iI5/s400/PICT0880.JPG" /></a>would appear to show that it is around 2 " thick bringing it into the big cat bracket.A big cat was due to show up around this time as it had for several seasons but sods law meant i ignored this picture until the other evidence came to light and i had already shifted the cam to somewhere else.Oh well,there is always next year.........<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div></div></div>bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-31806427758100788232011-04-17T08:15:00.000-07:002011-04-17T09:29:45.453-07:00Sussex big cats and the effect of light levels<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5IWgAIRiKBTG77DOu4r3mcfhSpi9_plBiOdWtz-Mo6YXZ1XboCkCVxJdyHnVdy2rlpKDQ1o6fIXrsIxGWFaUxcfaKCOGmgTcbOZCwNVwD6aKISMi_CezdPU2NCeWDoILLLUbQZvjgyD2E/s1600/PC220573.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596590058754120210" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5IWgAIRiKBTG77DOu4r3mcfhSpi9_plBiOdWtz-Mo6YXZ1XboCkCVxJdyHnVdy2rlpKDQ1o6fIXrsIxGWFaUxcfaKCOGmgTcbOZCwNVwD6aKISMi_CezdPU2NCeWDoILLLUbQZvjgyD2E/s400/PC220573.JPG" /></a> <br /><div>Sussex big cats are well positioned as regards to hunting,most have the chalky South downs in part of their home range together with the hinterland north of these hills with it,s mixed woods and coppices.2 separate big cats would appear to be utilising the higher light levels on the downs at night when the moon is low in the sky,small or not out at all. Big cats are mostly low level light hunters,as a general rule they will emerge from their lying up cover like impenetrable (to us)scrub some way through dusk depending on the state of the moon,seasons and weather sometimes on a moonlit night as late as when the woodcock flight or in our terms when the light has dropped so we can,t make out the bark on an oak tree at 100 paces.They will then gear up to hunt through the twilight(crepuscular) and on into the night (nocturnal) sometimes carrying on through to dawn.Their hunting success would certainly appear to be determined by the light levels available as cats need a certain amount of light to see by and also where they have positioned themselves in any given hunting area,thier prey on the other hand like deer and rabbits once the light at dusk has dropped to a certain level are unable to see very well in fact us humans have better low light vision than them and they move around using senses of smell and hearing as well as memory of the places that they are. When the moon rises early in the night and there is no cloud or is thin white cloud then this will give good light to hunt by but on moonless nights sightings are historically few and far between,this is because they can emerge well into dusk and have all night to hunt well whereas on dark nights they are often forced to hunt in the twilight of dusk and dawn,sometimes into the morning and so are more often reported.What is interesting is that witness reports and on the ground evidence gathering often pinpoint a big cat on the open downland part of it,s range on the moonless nights and in the far thicker cover of the hinterland on moonlit ones.As the South downs hugs the coast for a large proportion of it,s length it is well lit by light pollution from the huge urbanised areas that are the seaside towns,couple this with the usual large populations of rabbits that inhabit the town meets downs edges and it,s easy to see the attraction for nocturnal hunters.It certainly seems the case that a big cat would hunt on moonlit nights in the wooded areas that are interconnected with thick hedges and then hunting more out in the open on the downs on the dark nights in fact for the last 4 years it has been possible to predict with some degree of accuracy whether the downs or hinterland would throw up evidence of big cat activity depending on the state of the moon.There are exceptions of course like which season we are in or what weather is hitting us and to be truthful,the only certain thing to be said about big cats in Sussex is that there are no certainties.............(the photo shows a view of the downs to the west of Lewes with Streat hill at the top of the picture)</div>bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-5393487201098429622011-03-31T06:59:00.000-07:002011-03-31T07:33:12.417-07:00The spring movements of a Sussex big cat<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT1LSRO6fx6N-yZtcrFyumLnFLfIQ27XW2Fa1GcVxjpTQmm4YcdcRS3jmjO7rTDetCmcshEUr_COBL0ihsgk6P21OzJmlzXUWnm3QJqk553YCUMmZHoVzlTLUo3RFhyphenhyphenbN07StKI04r3mHg/s1600/PICT0556.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5590244070466732066" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT1LSRO6fx6N-yZtcrFyumLnFLfIQ27XW2Fa1GcVxjpTQmm4YcdcRS3jmjO7rTDetCmcshEUr_COBL0ihsgk6P21OzJmlzXUWnm3QJqk553YCUMmZHoVzlTLUo3RFhyphenhyphenbN07StKI04r3mHg/s400/PICT0556.JPG" /></a> <br /><div>Here is some data on the spring movements of a particular Sussex big cat from this year.As i,ve said before,big cats in Sussex principally target rabbits at this time year and the evidence to back this up is overwhelming to say the least as well as the effects of the moon have on their behaviour.Take this big cat for example,since the end of january it has been sighted only at dusk and dawn on only moonless nights and when it has been seen on a moonlit period this has only been in the middle of the night (with lamps).It has been seen on 16 verifiable occasions with all bar 2 of these being in rabbit hot spots together with suitable cover enabling the cat to approach it,s prey easily.On the 2 exceptions it was seen at night travelling at speed crossing a road in an area with few rabbits and presumably heading straight to an area where there was better hunting.All sightings were of a very large alsatian sized,black cat usually seen trotting with a very long outstretched tail.It was described as having small ears,well muscled legs and a flat face.The same area has been mapped out by myself over the last 11 years with last year going on mostly on the ground evidence (previously posted on bigcatdetective blog) due to gaining the trust of various farmers etc. i have since uncovered witness sightings to back up this evidence found.</div><br /><div>Briefly,it was seen at 1 site then 3 days later 16.5 km away with further sightings and other evidence linking it to the general area for a further 5 days.Then again 10 days later 14.5 km away on 2 days to be seen at night 8.5 km away.It certainly appeared to move quickly through the areas where there are few rabbits to appear for between 2 to 7 days in another area then to move on somewhere else.It has consistantly reappeared at the same cluster of parishes at the same stages of moon for 3 moons so far but i expect this to change by the next moon or at least by the end of april when it,s range should increase to take in account new food sources such as fledgling birds by which time it should still visit it,s previous places but not as predictably .</div><br /><div>So far it,s spring range encompasses an area of around 140 sq.km but obviously i cannot say it hasn,t gone outside of this range in the time period.The summer range will increase greatly in size to accomodate new food sources coming into being along with the summer cover which will enable it to hunt this seasonal prey,like waterfowl on banksides.The picture shows how birds such as ducks and pheasants are active at the first slivers of light falling prey to crepuscular hunters like big cats and foxes.</div><br /><div>Despite it,s huge size,around the 23" at the shoulder mark,it has consistantly ran away from dogs (4 occasions) and either trotted or ran off at speed when realising it had been seen by people...........</div>bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-31986526776643250372011-03-27T08:05:00.000-07:002011-03-27T08:59:11.410-07:00Sussex big cats prey on badgers,more evidence...Ok,so it,s scant evidence at best and only a skull of a youngish badger however it was found at a time earlier this month of intense big cat activity in West Sussex in an area where last year 2 fox carcases were found attributed as being big cat kills<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVkG8zMMRgofWZdiOLi6IpX7IDN9MXZNDrwovzOuxVzF0ct74n6tVpsrLukOeHOnkLmFOHGPZYcES5znDOzvcqzUR_I28IySpIWbqrD-lTeXRqDbrN0O6XPwvHm7uhR5h9Kg40jX2blx0M/s1600/P3230957.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5588776746745059762" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVkG8zMMRgofWZdiOLi6IpX7IDN9MXZNDrwovzOuxVzF0ct74n6tVpsrLukOeHOnkLmFOHGPZYcES5znDOzvcqzUR_I28IySpIWbqrD-lTeXRqDbrN0O6XPwvHm7uhR5h9Kg40jX2blx0M/s400/P3230957.JPG" /></a> .There is ample evidence on bigcatdetective.blogspot.com and elsewhere on the net that big cats habitually take foxes but none of badgers falling prey to these apex predators,badgers are not preyed on by anything else,they amble along with impunity falling victim only to traffic and yet this skull was found miles away from the nearest road.My trail cameras have been set up on big cat spotting tasks and wildlife survey dutys alike but all in areas where big cats have been known to be active and all have produced remarkably few badger pictures given that this stripy faced mustelid is very widespread and numerous .At this time of year the big cats are targeting almost exclusively rabbits as the deer are very much harder to catch than they were in deep winter but rabbit numbers are not yet thronged by the multitudes of youngsters yet.They will however also take foxes and a young badger shoudn,t be too much of a task for them but i had always thought that badgers were not taken by big cats because of the lack of evidence found.It,s very rare to find any parts of a badger like a skull,they were observed by a 1950,s naturalist(the name escapes me) dragging a old dead boar badger out of a sett and burying the corpse in a nearby rabbit bury.In fact,after a lifetime of being in the country accompanied by my morbid facination of skulls and attached bones,this is probably only the second badger skull i,ve ever found.What is needed next is a badger carcase bearing all the hallmarks of being a big cat kill as this is the conclusive proof as it has been with deer and foxes.(related article bigcatsinsussex.blogspot.com dated 13.2.11).........bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-15152836415729437822011-03-18T12:13:00.000-07:002011-03-28T10:06:05.687-07:00Falmer paw print<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFahC7aCNyq86dugLCzciDySJBlbycn_-SvcKpdSDYvoAzgpQqTJB_h6VFxNFlJ0-0XpTKbo1IV8aj0jnV_PvFu2sjuV2XhF41AcMdsnwQDeou2x3_e7n7xsDylgD9elovpwXwRV_GJ77O/s1600/P3160917.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585501355901670482" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFahC7aCNyq86dugLCzciDySJBlbycn_-SvcKpdSDYvoAzgpQqTJB_h6VFxNFlJ0-0XpTKbo1IV8aj0jnV_PvFu2sjuV2XhF41AcMdsnwQDeou2x3_e7n7xsDylgD9elovpwXwRV_GJ77O/s400/P3160917.JPG" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggiEpZupxAimbaZ5yapGyy-2_Qz1JFmyyMsaqT1vo_jxlNYQCzAAXmg5YjyigsRINxCIClmTykVWdriqD4bbvrM3GInThLhPZ0AyeyUpANpg-nb7LECY0aM2Blgz-4_TOVfiqAqB17CI5V/s1600/P3160907.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585500892603451170" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggiEpZupxAimbaZ5yapGyy-2_Qz1JFmyyMsaqT1vo_jxlNYQCzAAXmg5YjyigsRINxCIClmTykVWdriqD4bbvrM3GInThLhPZ0AyeyUpANpg-nb7LECY0aM2Blgz-4_TOVfiqAqB17CI5V/s400/P3160907.JPG" /></a> The big cat seen around the Brighton area (20" tall ) may well have left this 6cm wide paw print,it,s certainly very cat-like that is the 2 front toes are asymetrical,not parralel,there are no claw marks even though it,s a very deep print and it was found at the sort of place that a big cat would be expected to pass through.Coupled with this the Brighton sighting that was in the Argus newspaper was only down the road.Although not massive the print does concur with the size of cat that has been seen all winter till now from Offham to Telscombe and Devils Dyke and is far biggar than any domestic breed of cat could reach (the biggest Maine Coon tom from Keoka cats when splayed it,s paw was 5cm)with a print the actual paw is a bit larger to allow for skin etc so the actual paw that would of left this mark in the cow pat would of been closer to 7cm.Being in a cow pat is a first though as most cats don,t like getting their paws dirty,their pads are a connection with the ground and they feel their way away around........bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-89367834380867628582011-03-12T13:56:00.000-08:002011-03-12T13:57:11.585-08:00Sussex big cat seen climbing tree at night video report<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rFY2YO7wDWk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-56522489396351415622011-03-08T11:19:00.000-08:002011-03-08T14:09:32.319-08:00Mystery rabbit kills at Mt.Caburn<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ekjHm5rxquApD_bphJLohHqpRbWw4oiwu3zB7HN6PjvGTqGnDpV0Fc_U4KT7VA0z4fhEgnnaP4uCtAVhBfkG-wdj8wx06ZuK_VPA849eIzbJef7DpxtbUPqo80iCjleXE_U0TsP-lz8Y/s1600/P3070901.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ekjHm5rxquApD_bphJLohHqpRbWw4oiwu3zB7HN6PjvGTqGnDpV0Fc_U4KT7VA0z4fhEgnnaP4uCtAVhBfkG-wdj8wx06ZuK_VPA849eIzbJef7DpxtbUPqo80iCjleXE_U0TsP-lz8Y/s400/P3070901.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5581791766430488754" /></a><br />The sighting at Mt.Caburn last week previously posted as a possible puma sighting is now described as a sandy cat of about 20" tall.After meeting the witness who very kindly met me at the site and had already expertly investigated the area on the downland ridge where he saw the big cat and i an only repeat what was seen and it certainly doesn,t tally with being a puma.This is usual,witnesses very often say they saw a puma and then go on to describe a totally different big cat which is usually a British big cat.There are only 2 witness statements on my Sussex big cat files in 2010 where the description could and i repeat could tally with what would plausibly be called a puma or mountain lion and even then it is not definite and this is in the far east of the county.However the updated cat description does certainly fit in with what is usually seen in Sussex and especially the Lewes area,besides,evidence gathered at the scene,whilst by no means conclusive points to the usal prey being taken by the usual type of big cat,the British big cat.<br />The witness is a local chap and wildlife savvy,he showed me what he had found which was incredible to say the least for out in the open,about 3 weeks old,all eaten out the same way with the heads missing,the skin inside out literally dozens of rabbit carcases.They were spread out in the open around the ridge encompassing about 50 acres.We counted over 50 carcases and i must say in all my experience have never seen such a thing.My impression on seeing the first one from a distance was maybe a buzzard but they won,t chew on bones ,rasp them clean or skin them neatly inside out though a fox might but it would take the carcases off to some cover and not eat them on the spot in the middle of the field.There was little sign of them being killed either,not much fur lying around plus if a buzzard cathes and eats some of a rabbit the rest is usually taken off by scavengers like foxes or badgershowever sometimes when big cats kill and eat something,very often what is left won,t be touched,at least for a long time for some reason and this has been proved by leaving a trail camera at the scene in any case the rabbits appeared to be all eaten out in one sitting and all in the same fashion.<br />The dead rabbits were too far gone for a proper analysis but they do fit in with similar carcases found near big cat sightings and all were left in a similar fashion.What is clear is that in an area with such a high population of rabbits such as this,the numbers run into 1000,s,a big cat will stay for a short while say 2 or so weeks and hunt rather than move straight through,also Mt.Caburn especially it,s northern slopes and where the dead rabbits were is famous for big cat sightings over the years being thought of as a run through from the downs west of Lewes connecting that area with the ground all the way to Firle beacon and beyond.<br />As for the big cat itself,well,brown or sandy cats are very often male,the one seen locally previously has been much,much bigger and more different too look at so it,s not the brown one usually seen around here at this time of year.This is a very speculative theory at the moment but it may be a young male trying to find it,s way in the world and may be tolerated in the home range of its sire seen not more than 6 weeks ago a mile away.It has occurred to me of course that it is this big male but because it was lying down it looked smaller however there are a few defining features mentioned by the witnesses that i ommit from posting in order that witnesses describe fully what they see and not what they think they see which can be worlds apart so i,m pretty sure it,s not him.Further evidence will reveal itself i,m sure or the lack of any will prove otherwise.......bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-53216962837613233382011-03-08T00:09:00.000-08:002011-03-08T00:10:16.336-08:00Mystery rabbit kills at Mt.Caburn big cat sighting<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MDiOnIYYitM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-385882209675427772011-03-05T13:58:00.000-08:002011-03-05T14:27:35.594-08:00These moonless nights have been buzy againWell,at least one of our Sussex big cats has been furiously showing itself well these last moonless nights or should i say dawn twilights.3 very respectable sightings in 7 days means somethings going on.It,s in an area reasonably well known for big cat sightings over the years but not as frequently as recently and once again this 23" high big cat was chased by a dog out of some bushes which merely reinforces their unwillingness for conflict with man or one of his(her)beasts.The locations are all within a mile of each other but because of their proximity to a primary school wild horses won,t drag out of me where they are until they say so.A swiftly concocted mini vigil with another researcher on friday at daybreak saw a strong sun and bright light and not the dull mornings the big cat was seen on.Even so it was an interesting outing not least by hearing a magpie making a near perfect mimicry of a buzzard so good we even thought it was one at first.On the way home later in the day a stop off at the side hill east of Ditchling beacon brought a chance encounter with someone who had seen some sort of large cat not 200 yards from him with a load of other witnesses only an hour before.A pint of Harveys later finds a conversation with the barman and staff giving a pretty good description which i posted on bigcatsinsussex.co.uk, not a classic big cat type but something large definitely and not sounding very domestic.The actual description doesn,t though fit in with the type and colour of the big cat usually seen in the rough area so the jurys out for a bit on this one still,it,s nice to be able to have permission to give a location once in a while and along with a puma sighting on nearby Mt.Caburn earlier in the week there is surely a lot of movement going on with the Sussex big cats............bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-33443413038399596132011-02-26T15:20:00.000-08:002011-02-26T16:09:38.589-08:00Spring migration or just showing well?There did seem to be a bit of a spring rush end of jan,first few days of feb.with 4 of our Sussex big cats showing well.Ok,so maybe the Offham cat doesn,t actually seem to have a,strictly speaking,winter holding area but the Midhurst and Horsham cats have acted as predicted.I,ll start with the Midhurst cat and as already blogged it moved west from it,s winter holding area of Lavington Heath/Goodwood forests/Heyshott and passed north of Heyshott(to be seen in a tree)presumably heading to the Iping area and maybe a little more north.The Horsham cat has been moving steadily south out of St.Leonards forest where it apparently spent the last 3 months (blogged 11.12.2010)The Steyning cat showed up at Lancing on the 29th for the first time since the october sighting at Wiston though i would not dare to hazard a guess where she has been all winter as these open downland cats don,t show the same form as the Hinterland ones proved by the Offham cat who was sighted on Kingston ridge in the 22nd and has been popping up her pretty little head occassionally all winter but then this is typical of first year females(i will explain my theory on this in a later blog)<br />The one that sticks out though is the Ashdown forest cat not actually seen but has been trimming out the local fallow(typical prey of huge males)with the evidence found.Coughing was heard here end of jan and a fellow researcher managed to retrieve several good sized pawprint plaster casts,seen with the deer slots and we all saw them at the Talk nite recently in Lewes.<br />So,my theory is that in october when the mad rush gets finished by final leaf fall there then follows 3 months when most cats are strictly crepuscular/nocturnal.They have long,long dark nights to get their hunting done and the dusks are very short,only the most visible of cats get seen.They emerge when the duck are flighting which is very late into dusk and so unless a person is right on top of them they won,t get seen.Humans divide the year up into 4 parts and so do animals but in slightly different ways.Spring starts end of jan unless cold weather holds it back.There is a different smell in the air and in a mild start like we are having this year the grass is growing already and they could,not all,but some of the cats be positioning themselves ready for the rabbiting season when the young rabbits are born which varys in it,s start from year to year.This year it was bang on cue being just after Valentines day(see the connection?)last year it wasn,t until the start of april.When the young rabbits are in full flood literally every predator is out gorging themselves on them and i just can,t see why the big cats would be any different.For a start the roe and fallow deer have been moving right out onto the arable crops nipping the tips off the winter wheat and so are harder to catch being out in the open,they no longer spend vast amounts of time in the forestry blocks with finds of deer carcases over the years always tailing off in febuary.It,s this time of year when i,ve found the most fox carcases with cat kill signs especially in a late bunny breeding year like last year and the year before,this year i would expect the foxes to take a bit less of a hammering unless a cat has cub/s and she,ll take them along with anything else she can get hold of.That rush of sightings did occur on the moonless nights when travelling rather than hunting can be more on a cats agenda but what usually happens is that as the year progresses there won,t be that much of a peak until late july which is 6 months time and 3 months before the october migration.I can find no patterns though in the april/may time but i suppose that means this time of year is patternless or i,ve just overlooked the obvious........bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-355286304512663433.post-23426491572414351662011-02-17T01:34:00.000-08:002011-02-17T01:43:47.737-08:00Bigcat Evening Talk. Lamb inn,Lewes 22feb.We are holding the evening talk at the Lamb inn,Fisher street.Meet at 7.30pm for 8ish start.Evidence never seen before in public will be on view like photos of the possible Offham cat(i will reveal more on the night),photos of deer killed by big cats in Sussex,plaster casts of pawprints.We will be talking about what the bigcats get up to on the downs and surrounding countryside of Lewes and why we think they are intrinsically linked into the ecosystem.Allsorts of other stuff will be going on like a question and answer session.Entrance is free but we will be passing the bucket round for charity and Merrily Harpur with her publishers,Roving press,have very kindly donated her book "Roaring Dorset"for the raffle.....bigcatdetectivehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00617127268108215536noreply@blogger.com0