Black fur found at deer kill site

When 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.
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.
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.
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.
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........

Campers see big cat in Sussex woods/interview

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........

Is this the tail tip of a big cat?

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 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.........

Sussex big cats and the effect of light levels

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)