Spotted a 'Big Cat' earlier

[Mad Doug Biker]

Over 10 years ago there was a story in the local paper about someone seeing a "big cat" with the English Nature spokesperson coming out with the usual patronising "probably a feral cat.. trick of the light optical illusion etc" guff. A few weeks later I was with my then girlfriend-a fellow army sergeant-,my brother-a zookeeper-and his girlfriend, who has a phd in something zoological, so a group of people used to observing things in the open and pretty clued-up on wild animals, not far as the cat runs from the first sighting when we saw a puma, not as a fleeting distant glimpse, but about 30 yards away, sat on a rock in a typical cat on its haunches pose. We had a good look at her, she was close enough to see that she was female*, she had a good look at us, stepped down off her rock and strolled off (this was in the woods near Rusland Beeches for those who know the southern lake district.) We told the local paper, who again spoke to English Nature, but this time, for some strange reason, the spokie didn't comment.

*Females have a more delicate snout,

Yes, and there is exactly what annoys me about a lot of these things, you need to be some sort of expert before you are taken seriously.
I mean, who do they think we are, complete and utter retards who can't tell the difference between an animal that's close and one that's far away, a bit like Father Dougall with the cows in Father Ted?

I'm sure you are all nice people and everything, but, really, you would be taken seriously whilst I wouldn't, even if we saw the same thing?? Bollox, utter, utter bollox, sorry.

Another, more obnoxious example of this sort of thing was at Hillsborough, where all the people who saw what happened were treated to be total morons who couldn't possibly have been able to comprehend what was right in front of them....... Except for a Doctor of course, who they tried to discredit also anyway.