Comment: Survival would be easy, but sightings mean little without hard evidence

COULD big cats exist in the UK? Yes they could and with relative ease. There is sufficient food and cover to support any big cat, be it a leopard, jaguar or tiger for that matter – although tiger reports are very rare and evidence suggests there are none on the loose at the moment.

The Freedom of Information request submitted to Scottish police forces revealed more than 100 sightings were reported in the last five years. This does not mean we have 100 big cats at large. From my own research I can confidently say 95 per cent were misidentifications of other animals, such as domestic cats or dogs.

If you see any animal at a distance that is dark in colour, the human eye perceives it as larger than it actually is. The RAF realised this some years ago, when it changed the colour of its training aircraft to black.

I have worked closely with numerous police forces over the years and the majority do take this subject seriously. But a lack of resources prevents them from conducting area-wide searches for these animals, while the lack of evidence over the years makes most investigations futile.

This is where myself and other organisations come in to play. We have the time and experience to wheedle out the reports that appear to be false alarms.

The handful of big cats that do exist wild in the UK at the moment don’t appear to have attacked anyone to date, but there are reports of significant attacks on wildlife and livestock.

Back in January this year, there was some major news in Gloucestershire, where the killing of several deer was blamed on big cats. DNA evidence was taken and analysed, but nothing was found to prove that a big cat was involved, only foxes and badgers and the like.

The deer were most likely killed by poachers and left for scavengers to deal with the remains.

• Paul Westwood is founder of the website Big Cat Monitors.