FT263

The belief that Britain’s ABCs are descendants of big cats which escaped in the past, or were released when the 1976 Dangerous Wild Animals Act made them expensive to keep, is an example of what the late John Michell called ‘Explanationism’ – in that its popularity can be explained by its convenience, not by the evidence. Apart from the fact that 80 per cent of ABCs are jet black (a colour possible only among leopards and jaguars, and rare even among them) there is their improbable ubiquity – no outpost of Britain, it seems, is without the occasional glimpse of a mysterious big cat.