Sheep are not eaten by big cats in Sussex

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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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........

Sussex big cats do prey on badgers

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Anyhow,i contacted Johnathen Mc.Gowen from all the way over in Dorset(see his very informative website here http://www.thenaturalstuff.co.uk/ ) 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.

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........

Sussex 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 .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).........

Do bigcats in Sussex eat badgers?

There has been a distinct lack of badger pictures coming out of the trail cameras,in fact out of 7 different camspots this winter only 1 has showed badgers with any frequency.Of the others,2 now have just picked up these stripy things for the first time.Badgers are on the move a lot at this time of year as the yearlings get booted out of the main setts about now and the young boar badgers are forced to find areas well away from their familys sett.This is supported by the large number of roadkills seen at this time of year but this doesn,t explain why they have been absent from being in the picture so to speak.As the cameras are plotted up where bigcats are known to frequent it has left me wondering,wildlife groups have told me that they do notice a decline in badger activity in deep winter but they are still active and still show up on their cameras with frequency.

For some years now i,ve noticed that there are fewer signs of badger when i,m looking for bigcat evidence however i,ve always found it hard to believe that they are being preyed upon.For a start the adults are large,heavy,powerful animals with strong jaws,they are Mustelids like ferrets and their claws can rip up tree roots, dig the ground like JCB,s and so would cause damage to any animal foolish or unskillful enough to tackle them.Foxes usually give them a wide berth and their jugganort like run would shrug off any pursuier.

The subject of bigcats preying on them is something i have thought about and touched upon in previous blogs but i,ve had no hard evidence to back it up like carcases eaten in a cat-like way to prove anything.The occasional anecdotal statement by someone saying they saw a half eaten badger is no good to me unless i,ve seen either the carcase or good photos of the corpse.As regards the absence of them being in the trailcam pics it,s best,i find,to distinguish between evidence of coincidence and cause but everything happens for a reason in nature.........