20 January 2024 , 11:04
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Experts have hailed an “incredible sighting” of a big cat which was reportedly captured on camera in in the Cheshire countryside.
The footage, which appears to show a large black cat prowling through a field, was captured by Becky Clarke at an undisclosed location in the northwestern county while she was out for a walk. The video, recorded on Becky’s iPhone has been hailed as “incredible” by some experts - and represents some of the clearest evidence to date of the existence of these massive creatures living in the wild in the UK.
However, Becky said the video almost never came to be, as she was so startled by seeing the big cat that she nearly forgot to hit the record button on her phone. "We watched it for about 20 seconds on zoom before I realised I hadn’t pressed record,” she explained. Becky said the recent building work in the area may be disrupting the creature’s habitat, Cheshire Live reports.
“There has been so much disruption in our area with thousands of houses going up over the last five to six years, and now motorway works cutting through green space.
A still taken from Becky Clarke's video shows the beast moving through a field in the Cheshire countryside"It was only in the last few years I was lucky enough to see the deer, and now the cat. I suspect their areas have been disrupted so much they have had to move. We’re hopeful to see it again,” she said.
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The sighting was made on a recent Saturday afternoon on the outskirts of a town in Cheshire although its exact location is being kept secret to avoid hunters. Matt Everett, director of recent hit Amazon documentary Panthera Britannia Declassified said: “It’s pretty good evidence, even without scaling you can tell it is a large cat.
"The birds seemed to get spoiled as if there was a predator nearby too – it’s all consistent with what you’d expect.”
Tim Whittard, co-producer of Panthera Britannia Declassified added: “I think it’s an incredible sighting. We have seen a significant surge in eye-witness reports, as well as people coming forward with new photographic and video evidence since the release of the documentary.
"I think it’s really changed the attitude of Joe Public towards this subject, and it’s no longer a matter of ridicule for eyewitnesses.
"Things like the leopard DNA being found in the Stroud Valleys in 2022, as well as being able to piece together so much of the history around how these big cats came to be roaming freely in the British countryside in the first place appears to have given more people the confidence to come forward."