Mystery Big Cats Book
IN the past 20 years every county in Britain, from Caithness to Cornwall, has had recurrent sightings of ‘big cats’ – described as being like pumas or panthers.
These anomalous big cat sightings are now running at an estimated 1,200 a year. There have been many recorded sightings in Stocksbridge, and as you can see on page two of this week’s Look Local, people have claimed to have found big cat remains.
Farmers, gamekeepers, ornithologists, policemen and even parents on the school run have all been thrilled – or terrified – to see what they assume is a big cat escaped from a zoo.
Yet these big cats are neither escapees from zoos nor, as this book conclusively argues, the descendants of pets released into the countryside by their owners in 1976 when the Dangerous Wild Animals Act made it too expensive to keep big cats.
The questions therefore remain, what are they and where have they come from? With the orthodox explanations overturned, Merrily Harpur searches for clues in the cultures of other times and places.
She discovers our mystery felines have been with us for longer than we imagine, and throws unexpected light on the way Western civilisation looks at the world.
Merrily has written copy for Look Local before, following the spate of sightings in the area, and has become something of an expert in the field.
Mystery Big Cats is the first serious and comprehensive book on the subject.
From the drama of eyewitnesses’ verbatim accounts to the excitement of new perspectives and insights into a strange and often terrifying experience, it gets to grips with what is now the commonest encounter with the unknown in Britain.
Mystery Big Cats will be launched at a national conference on anomalous big cats taking place near Market Harborough at the end of March. Full details of dates, speakers, location, etc at www.harpur.org/conference.htm
james@looklocal.org.uk
Look Local: 24th March 2003