The year just gone passed with the holy grail of ABC research still undiscovered. No big cat body turned up either as road kill or at the hands of gamekeepers; yet – as in other years – the capture of such a prize sometimes seemed only a whisker away.

In March, a witness driving from Dunmow in Essex to Bishop’s Stortford saw a black animal “too big to be an ordinary household cat” dead by the road. His uncle, passing by shortly afterwards, verified it was indeed a panther, but when he returned again it had gone. [1]  A month later, in Leicestershire, Sue Hutton saw the carcass of the famed Shepshed black panther in Ingleberry Road on the outskirts of the town. However, the local paper reported that “even in death the creature remains a mystery, as when she returned to investigate, the body had vanished.” [2]

In August, BCIB investigator Terry Dye received a report of a Labrador-sized, black cat-like animal on the A11 close to the roundabout at Barton Mills near Cambridge. He said: “I drove there as fast as possible but it had already gone. Funny, as a dead deer on the same stretch of road stayed put for a month.” [3]

For decades, ABCs have avoided both capture and camera, even as dead bodies. In April 2004, two employees of a company in Lincolnshire, driving to work separately, reported seeing “a large, black, panther laid in the road”. One had even stopped to confirm what he at first did not believe he was seeing. Excitedly, he turned around and went back home for his camera. However, on his return the beast had was nowhere to be seen. [4]

Indeed, ABC corpses’ habit of disappearing has seeded a range of conspiracy theories with the police or DEFRA (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) as the agents of a cover-up. A Cambridge lorry driver, for instance, came across the body of a black cat long enough to stretch right across the hard shoulder of the M11 near Junct­ion 12. There were no other veh­icles on the road, and he dared not leave the cab in case it was still alive, but reported it to the police. Next day, the body had gone, and when he enquired he was told by police that there was no record of his phone call. [5]

The conspiracies’ tendrils extend as far as – or perhaps emanate from – the MoD, in particular the RAF base at Fylingdales, near Whitby in Yorkshire. Two separate collisions with ABCs in 2004 were reported, one witness claiming to have hit a big cat while driving an MoD bus and others claiming to have seen the body being removed by MoD officials or police. The MoD denies any such incident, and witnesses subsequently claimed they were “told by police” not to mention it to anyone. [6]

However, ABCs are quite cap­able of looking after themselves without intervention by the MoD. Indeed, they have a seemingly preternatural ability to survive what would kill any other animal, as Maureen Covey of Farnham in Surrey noted. She wrote:

“Four years ago, my son-in-law, an ex-paratrooper, was driving his heavy, vehicle-recovery vehicle on a Hampshire country road with forest on both sides when a large animal bounded out of the undergrowth. He thought his vehicle had been hit by a deer, but when he halted to investigate he saw a large cat lying in the road. It was sandy-coloured and looked like a puma. Just as he was about to bend over it for a closer look, the animal, obviously only stunned, got to its feet, looked at him, and then loped off into the undergrowth.” [7]

And in May 2008 a former gamekeeper, Vince, described a strange incident that had stuck in his memory since 1980:

“I was an under-keeper on an estate in Ayrshire, Scotland, of almost 6,000 acres [2,400ha]. The head keeper and I had been out checking the fenn traps, used for small vermin. We were about to call it a day, and stopped on a single-track road about 10ft [3m] wide to check a water pipe which ran beneath the surface of the road, from one side to the other. I sat in the Land Rover while the head keeper jumped out to have a look in the pipe. After a few seconds, he shouted for me to come and have a look in the pipe; he also told me to bring the only gun we had with us, a 4.10 single-shot cartridge used mainly for small game.

“Anyway, over I went to where the other keeper was standing, about 10 yards back from the pipe. I cannot describe the expression on his face. He told me to go to the other end of the pipe and have a look. I did this very warily, and saw a very large animal, far larger than anything we were used to dealing with – I would guess 6–8ft [1.8–2.4m] from head to tail – with what I can only describe as feline features: eyes, ears and a very low, deep, chilling growl.

“The 4.10 shotgun would have been useless against an animal this size, so option two was cyanide, which we always carried in the Land Rover. A very crude method of vermin control but very effective. 5oz [140g] of the powder at each end of the pipe would be more than enough to kill whatever was in it in minutes.

“After the gas was in place, we blocked both ends with boulders. As time was getting on we decided to call it a day and return first thing in the morning to remove the body of the animal.

“On our return, what we found defies explanation. The boulders we used were knocked away from one end of the pipe and the occupant had gone. Still to this day I don’t know how the animal could possibly have survived and escaped. We found no trace of it and we never saw it again.” [8]

SOURCES
1 Harlow Herald, Letters, 3 April 2008.
2 Loughborough Echo, 30 May 2008.
3 Big Cats in Britain (BCIB); www.bigcatsinbritain.org, 18 Aug 2008.
4 BCIB, 20 April 2004.
5 Archive of Terry Dye, BCIB.
6 BCIB; Whitby Gazette & Herald 9 June, 23 July 2004.
7 D. Telegraph, 11 May 1993.
8 BCIB, 13 June 2008.