Spotted a 'Big Cat' earlier

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raleighnut

Legendary Member
A couple of weeks ago I was sat in a public square and I wondered to myself why the country is not littered with dead pigeons. What happens to the pigeons when they die? My guess is that they are eaten whole by big cats.
And they wouldn't leave a trace either. My labrador doesn't if he's lucky enough (!) to find a rank, dead pigeon!
My German Sheppard used anything like that as eau de Cologne and used to look so pleased with himself. Fox poo is the worst though. :cursing:
 

raleighnut

Legendary Member
It must have been many, many years ago, as the keeping of big cats has been subject to statutory controls for almost 40 years (since 1976). The last figures I saw for big cats in private hands in the UK (as opposed to zoos) were from 2010, which showed that there were 137 big cats in private ownership (including bobcats, caracals, cheetahs, jaguars, leopards, lions, lynxs, ocelots, pumas, servals, and tigers).

The trade in wild cats is tightly controlled (in part because of CITES requirements) and the cost of purchase of far more than 'a grand'.
He could well have got them pre 76 as I saw them in the 80's and a big cheers for reminding me how old I am.:cry:But I saw a documentary not that long ago about the illegal trade in exotic pets and that still goes on today.
 

JoeyB

Go on, tilt your head!
Which is better than smelling like a dead fox that's been mauled by a Lynx.

Debatable
 

Bryony

Veteran
Location
Ramsgate, Kent
I saw a wallaby in Buck woods, north Bradford, nobody believed me, weeks later it was in the local paper afters several spottings.
I used to live in a village just outside Maidstone in Kent and it was common knowledge among the people that lived there that there were wallabys (3 or 4 of them) roaming around the outskirts of the village. When I used to tell my friends that didn't live there I'd seen one they used to laugh at me, until one got hit by a car on the A20 near the petrol station I worked at, and it was reported on our local news! They believed me after that!!
 

Hacienda71

Mancunian in self imposed exile in leafy Cheshire
I used to live in a village just outside Maidstone in Kent and it was common knowledge among the people that lived there that there were wallabys (3 or 4 of them) roaming around the outskirts of the village. When I used to tell my friends that didn't live there I'd seen one they used to laugh at me, until one got hit by a car on the A20 near the petrol station I worked at, and it was reported on our local news! They believed me after that!!
There was a colony of wallabies near Macclesfield forest that dated back to before the second world war when they escaped from a private zoo. It was rumored that they died out in the late 90's during a bad winter but there have been sightings periodically in the area since then.
 

MikeG

Guru
Location
Suffolk
I've always wondered the same Sara. They get eaten? Fair enough, but they can't all die in bed and wait to be gobbled up, I've never seen a bird die and I've seen millions of birds, we should be being dive bombed by dead and dying birds regularly. :blink:

Birds tend not to die whilst flying, so "dive-bombed" might be a bit fanciful.

I've never seen a human die, and I've seen millions of humans. We should be tripping over them everywhere.
 
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