FLAWS in the 'clearest ever big cat photo' that could prove they prowl the British countryside

The latest big cat sighting in the UK news is a photograph unearthed in archives of what appears to be a melanistic leopard in long grass (black panther). The photograph was taken in Smallthorne, Staffordshire, UK, according to an inscription on it as reported in The Times and online today August 16, 2023.

Clearest ever big cat photo could prove that they prowl the British countryside? Image: Centre for Fortean Zoology.

The picture was discovered in files of a zoology organisation and was discovered in the making of a documentary about big cats in the UK. The program is called Panthera Britannia Declassified which will be broadcast in the UK later this year on Amazon Prime Video. It was made by Dragonfly Films.

The filmmakers are ecstatic but being cynical I see defects in this photograph. 

• Private zoo?
• Where was it taken really?
• Smallthorne is a small urban district in Stoke-on-Trent

Smallthorne location

Here is a map showing Smallthorne as an urban area. This is not the British countryside!

Private Zoo?

We see a black panther in a field in long grass as stated. We know nothing about the photograph except that it appears to have been taken in Staffordshire as mentioned.

Clearest ever big cat photo could prove that they prowl the British countryside? But might this not be the large grassy enclosure of a private zoo owner? Image: as above.

But when you look at the photograph there is no context to it. It could easily be a large enclosure. This might be a tame melanistic leopard owned by a person who liked to own exotic animals. They might have had a private zoo. They might still have a private zoo.

The person would need a licence from their local authority to possess such an animal and that licence would place demands upon them to ensure that their enclosure was satisfactory and to the required standards but the photo might have been taken in a zoo. 

It doesn't look like a public zoo quite obviously but it might, as mentioned, have been taken in a private zoo in the UK or abroad such as in America where there are many thousands of private zoos with exotic cats. 

This has not been mentioned in the report. In the past, there have been countless numbers of big cat sightings in the British countryside. All photographs are of very poor quality and on every occasion, as I recall, the cats have been domestic cats on investigation.

But admittedly this is a much clear photograph and the cat is quite positively a melanistic leopard. The question is where was the photograph taken; in the wild or a private zoo?

This doubt needs to be addressed. The picture apparently was unearthed by Carl Marshall, the assistant director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology when he was working in the archives, I presume for the making of this documentary.

He said that, "The photograph is unambiguous, it is clearly a large cat of the Panthera genus, and it's so clear we can even see it whiskers. The photo was attached to a mysterious handwritten letter, which includes a date without the year, signed with a full name, and doesn't have the sender's address".

Found photo?

I have another problem with the photograph; perhaps this mysterious person believed that there were big cats wandering around the British countryside and he found a photograph which supported his conspiracy. It does not mean that he took the photograph. He may have found it somewhere and then put the inscription on it.

We need to know more. I cannot be as excited as Mr Marshall who clearly wants there to be big cats in the British countryside. If you want something that badly you can interpret pictures to suit your desires.

Apparently, the documentary has new DNA evidence proving the presence of at least one wild big cat near a sheep-kill in Gloucestershire in July 2022, as reported by The Times. Well, it's the first time I've heard about DNA evidence.

I am cynical about this because I have to be because realistic the all the photographs that I've seen are very poor quality which is very indicative of reliance on conspiracy theories without hard evidence although clearly DNA evidence is much better but I will wait to watch the film to assess that.