Fears that child could be victim of big cat
Inverness Courier: 20/05/11 By Val Sweeney

CALLS are being made for the police to take seriously reports of a big Black Cat roaming the hills above Loch Ness.

Residents believe the creature has already attacked animals and there are fears a person could be next.

Leading the campaign for action is senior Highland Councillor Margaret Davidson who believes recent incidents on the northern side of Loch Ness are credible.

The council’s unshakable housing and social work chairwoman first became aware of attacks on a dog and a lamb and has received photographs taken in the Bunloit area purporting to show large-sized paw prints.

“Then, I took it very seriously,” said Councillor Davidson, who runs Abriachan Nurseries by the side of Loch Ness.

“It seems to be a clear pattern is emerging. I have since heard tell of sighting on other hills on north Loch Ness and Glen Urquhart.”

The Aird and Loch Ness councillor continued: “I believe this is a public safety issue. The recent sightings are on a hill next to a chalet park and on the Great Glen Way.

“I believe the police need to take this similarly seriously and the animal or animals need to be captured.”

Katrina Wallace lives with husband, Jim, and their three young children at Bunloit.

The family say they are now afraid to go out at night after a series of incidents which have been reported to the police.

On one occasion, she claims her husband got a glimpse of a creature just outside the house.

“We have two black labradors and he thought it was one of those but then realised they were inside,” Mrs Wallace said. “He looked again and saw the animal’s tail.”

In February, one of the dogs had to be treated by the vet after being attacked one night in the garden. “The top part of its leg was grazed and the vet said it could only get an injury like that if it had been dragged.”

She also discovered a badly-mauled dead lamb which had a large puncture wound on the back of its neck while on another occasion she took photographs of large paw prints leading to the house from a nearby wooded area. “A friend of ours who does a lot of shooting and has tracked animals confirmed they are cat prints and a big one at that,” Mrs Wallace said.

She is now afraid a child could be attacked but feels some residents are reluctant to acknowledge the issue. “Nobody really wants to speak about it,” she said. “They don’t want to admit it is there.”

Northern Constabulary have told them nothing can be done without DNA evidence.

“Up until now not enough action has been taken,” said Mrs Wallace.

But a Northern Constabulary spokesman said the police do take such reports seriously. “Clearly there is a public safety issue and a welfare issue for the animal concerned,” he said.

“Where there is credible information that there may be a large animal in a specific area then we will work with our Scottish SPCA partners to try and recover it through the use of humane live traps.”

Is this the kind of creature thought to be in the hills above Loch Ness?

Was it really a leopard that was spotted?
Inverness Courier: Opinion (based on an earlier sighting elsewhere in the Highlands)

MYSTERIOUS animals strike a chord in our psyche and the Highlands has a rich tradition in such sightings. The newspapers last week featured the ‘beast of Embo’, sighted by sisters after 18 sheep had been killed.

It sent my mind whirring back to 1980 and the celebrated Cannich puma which generated the kind of tabloid frenzy nowadays generated by Jordan’s Hindenburg-like cleavage or Cheryl Cole’s latest lip gloss.

There had been mystery animal sightings in the North a long time previously. The Daily Express reported back in 1927 that in rural Inverness-shire sheep and goats had been attacked by an animal a shepherd described as “like a leopard but without spots”. A strange description unless it was the first case of a leopard actually changing his spots. Like the guy telling his mate: “I’ve just spotted a leopard” and his pal replying:”Don’t be daft, they’re born with spots”.

Anyway, The Express reported that traps were set and a creature was caught which was sent to London Zoo where it was identified as a lynx. Later it turned out London Zoo had no record of receiving any such animal. It was the biggest animal tall tale since there were three bears and one married a giraffe. The other two put him up to it.

In 1973 there was a “big cat” sighting in Strathnaver, Caithness, by a retired Glasgow police sergeant – and remember, those hardy guys in that era were not prone to dubious eyesight or wild flights of imagination unless giving evidence at a villain’s trial. The sergeant reckoned a puma with a rabbit in its mouth jumped in to the path of his car, almost colliding with it.

It was reported in 1977 that a man and his nephew at Farr, 10 miles from Inverness, “saw a lioness and two cubs” in a field and the next day a similar sighting was recorded at Culduthel. It definitely wasn’t a buffalo, which allows me to ask what did the buffalo say to his son when he was leaving?

“Bison”.

In July 1981 a workman coming off shift at the McDermott oil platform construction yard at Ardersier saw an animal “larger than an Alsatian, identical to a puma” come out of undergrowth and cross the road. On Christmas Eve the same year, again at the McDermott yard entrance, someone reported his headlights had caught a tan creature “larger and heavier built than a Labrador dog”. Yes, I know, some more sceptical readers might speculate whether these witnesses had, in fact, seen an Alsatian and a Labrador.

Then again, in July 1997 a man from Kirkintilloch who caused a three car pile-up on the A9 near Ralia, just south of Newtonmore, told police that he had seen a black and white creature “about the size of a Great Dane” jump out in front of his car, making him lose control. Some might suspect a shaggy dog story, but at Inverness Sheriff Court, Sheriff James Fraser found the charge of careless driving not proven.

Eleven years ago four golfers playing at Nairn Dunbar contacted police to say they had seen a large male lynx 30 yards from them as they stood on the seventh green. I know about birdies and eagles, but a lynx on the links?

All these pale into insignificance compared to the commotion at Cannich on 29th October, 1980. There had been cases of livestock harmed by a mystery cat in Glen Affric for a couple of years. Farmer Ted Noble, who died eight years later, erected a trap with a sprung door that was connected to a sheep’s head inside the cage and reported catching alive a fully grown female puma.

Cue a stampede up the glen of Her Majesty’s media as the event rapidly became UK-wide and international news. But there were different views. When the photograph of the puma’s face in a cage was published in two competing tabloids, one headline stated:”Grrr!”, but the rival headline was “Miaow”, claiming the animal was as tame as a tabby cat.

The Puma of the Glen was taken to a new home at Highland Wildlife Park at Kincraig where the director Eddie Orbell stated that, in his view, the puma had never spent as long as 30 minutes in the wild. It refused to eat an unskinned rabbit and would only take prepared food. It was reported to be very overweight and tame.

This monstrously savage creature apparently enjoyed having its tummy tickled. And was named Felicity. Like mixing a hyena with gravy, it became a laughing stock.

Amidst widespread suspicion of a hoax, with one particular journalist the centre of suspicion, no proof of this was ever forthcoming. The huge publicity made Felicity a favourite with visitors to the park, where she remained until her death in January, 1985. Her body was stuffed and put on display at Inverness Museum.

What really happened in those eventful days in Cannich 31 years ago? And who do you believe? Some reckon Felicity arrived in the glen via Land Rover, others believe she was one of a family of pumas in the area. Karl Popper, the Austrian philosopher, said: “Ultimate truth is unattainable”. And maybe that’s true about how Felicity came to be in that hillside cage.

But the phenomena of mystery big cats continues, as the episode in Embo shows. It is suggested that new laws on the keeping of dangerous wild animals in the 1970s led to some owners turning their beasts out in to the wild. This could conceivably account for some sightings.

In recent years beavers have been reintroduced to Argyll and a Sutherland landowner wants to bring back wolves after a 400-year absence. The argument for wolves is that deer and rabbits cause great damage and nature, red in tooth and claw, taking its course might be beneficial. Those who keep sheep will be less relaxed.

But they say that on a cold night up Cannich way, particularly when strong drink is taken, you can hear on the soft breeze the haunting cry of a puma. Pining after its cousin, who has flitted to Embo.

More info on big cats in the Loch Ness area can be found here

Felicity - the Cannich Puma