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Big Cat Fear in Sheep Attack By CJ McGinley

The Mirror: 14th March 2008

The Mirror
   
THE hunt was on yesterday for a wild cougar or panther gardai believe may be roaming an Irish beauty spot attacking sheep.
The wild cat mauled a flock in the Ballylawn area of Manorcunningham, Co Donegal, recently and was spotted by locals racing across a field afterwards.
Supt Vincent O'Brien said gardai, the local ISPCA inspector and wildlife officers met yesterday in Letterkenny as fears grow over the animal striking again.
He added: "We have got dropping samples and they've been sent away for analysis, so we're not exactly sure what kind of animal we're dealing with.
"However, the sightings we have report it was a large black cat-type animal such as a cougar that moved extremely fast across the fields and was noticed crawling on its belly.
"The first reported sighting was back in 2007 in the Newtown cunningham area although the animal described on that occasion was a different colour. We have alerted wildlife officers and we're appealing to people to be vigilant in the East Donegal area, particularly farmers."
He added the matter was being treated "extremely seriously".
The officer told the Donegal News: "We'd particularly appeal to any owner of exotic animals that may have escaped recently to contact us immediately as part of our inquiries."
Last July it emerged animal experts were unable to confirm paw prints found in the Castlefin area of East Donegal were that of a "big cat".

Do you have any information on the above reports. Were you the person involved, or are you aware of any more sightings in this area. We would appreciate any information that you could give us.

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