'Hybrid-panther' spotted prowling through fields near UK village

19 November 2023 , 12:31

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'Hybrid-panther' spotted prowling through fields near UK village

A man has claimed he spotted a panther-like animal the size of a greyhound prowling through fields near a rural village.

Gordon Welsh, 50, said he was walking along a road near Blackdog, Aberdeenshire, when he saw the animal and he believes it was a mix between a panther, which is native to South America, and another type of animal.

He managed to get the beast on video and said it looked around the size of a greyhound – if not bigger – and was "well solid looking". Gordon has worked as a fishing and hunting guide, a deerstalker and a farmhand in the past, so he thinks he knows "the difference between a domestic cat, a feral cat and that cat".

He said: "I was just walking at the time and I’ve just seen it like limping – that’s what caught my eye. I was like ‘the hell is that?’ But then I was like ‘it’s nae a cat, it’s too big."

The animal was 'too big to be a cat' (Credit: Pen News/Gordon Welsh)

The animal was prowling near a village in Scotland (Credit: Pen News/Gordon Welsh)

The Scot believes there are big cats prowling around the UK, and along with many others claims that Britain has a wild population of the beasts, including panthers and pumas. He said this is not the first time he has seen one, adding: "From the way it was moving, the tail size and that, it was slightly like a panther, but it could be a crossbreed. I’ve seen them plenty of times, I’ve seen lynx, I’ve seen panthers, I’ve seen crossbreeds – they’re all over the place, trust me. To be quite honest with you, most will think you mad, but these things are out there, as a certainty."

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He shared the video on a Facebook group dedicated to Scottish big cat sightings, and found that a number of people agreed with him that it was a panther. One person said, "looks like a black panther”, while another felt that it was: "no house cat", while a third viewer said: "It’s clearly a panther, look at the size of it". Others, however, were not convinced, and suggested it was simply a larger-than-usual house cat.

Gordon is convinced what he saw was panther and thinks that the amount of wildlife that would be a suitable food source is what brought the beast to the area as there is "plenty of deer" and smaller creatures to eat nearby. He added: "They would not bother humans, really. They’re more skittish of us than of anything else. He was only out during the day because he was hurt, or was just taking the path of least resistance across a park."

The existence of a wild big cat population in Britain remains unproven. While there have been isolated cases of big cats being captured, but doubters claim they are only illegally kept exotic pets that escaped, or were released by their owners.

Michael Havis