Just had another report of the big black cat in the west of Hartlepool. Ironically I was leading a guided walk over that way yesterday and was telling people that there had been no reports for a while.
The sighting was last Friday in a remote part of Hartlepool with just the odd farm and house (the usual area in fact). One of the residents was driving home when she saw a BBC next to the road eating a sheep. The BBC was described as being bigger than a dog (I dare say it would have to be to be eating a sheep). The farmer who passed on the sighting to my informant thought that the sheep had died from something else rather than being killed by the cat though don’t know how he came to that conclusion.
When we were doing our walk yesterday we found two large droppings on a footpath next to a hedge about half a mile from the above spot. Their size and shape reminded me of the ones that Jonathan brought to the conference ie about 8″ in total length and fairly narrow for the length. i would have put them down as fox were it not for the fact that they were about 4 times the size of your normal fox dropping. The first dropping contained a fair bit of hair the second was almost pure sheep’s wool. I didn’t have anything to put them in at the time but I am now planning to go back and collect them and see if the hair can be analysed or even DNA tested (that is if they don’t smell of dog)
cheers
Ian Bond (Northumbrian Mammal Group).
Ian addressing the delegates at the 2009 BCIB Conference at the Catle Eden Walkway, (complete with the Heartbeat bus).
Filed under: British Big Cats
What a great photograph taken by me!