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.

Big cats in England? It is time to stop the charade.

The "Beast of Somerset" has emerged again from those soggy fields and behind trees. The Sun newspaper, ever ready to sensationalise, declares that a big cat the size of an Alsatian has been filmed and it is the clearest ever footage of the "Beast of Somerset". 

First off, an Alsatian is much smaller than a big cat but that is beside the point, I suppose. The video clearly shows a black domestic cat of standard size walking across a field. If people have difficulty in assessing the size of a cat at a distance, then you only have to look at the way the cat walks, i.e. their gait, to tell you that this is a domestic cat.

Clearly a black domestic cat enjoying an outing near his home in some adjacent fields. Not a Beast of Somerset as sensationally claimed. Photo: Kennedy News Media.

Big cats walk in a very masculine way if that's a good description, even if they are female. They saunter and they are very muscular in their limbs. It is a completely different way of walking and running. It is highly noticeable and this black cat is trotting like a domestic cat, using delicate and dainty steps. And the limbs are far too skinny to be a big cat.

I suppose that just because the cat is black somebody thinks of a black panther and we have a big cat on the loose in the south-west of England. No, it's just a quiet news day when the editor is asked to somehow fill the newspaper. It's a complete laugh and it is transparent and of course the editors of the newspapers know exactly what they're doing. The problem is that some people, some frankly gullible people, actually believe it. 

There is a group of people in England who believe that there are scores of big cats of various species hiding away in copses in the British landscape but all we ever see are grainy, blurred videos and images which is highly convenient because they don't provide us with sufficient information except when you can tell a difference by the way they walk!

It is time to stop this charade. I have written articles about this before and on every occasion, I've been proved right. I have also written about what I believe to be the best test if one is needed (and it is not to be honest) to gauge whether a video of a so-called big cat is genuine, which is the way they walk as mentioned. 

You can use YouTube if you want to study the differences. The big cats saunter and trot in a lugubrious nonchalant way whereas the domestic cats step daintily through the wet grass and their paws are tiny in comparison. I won't go on because I've made my point. The problem is the news media won't stop presenting these ridiculous news stories so they don't get the point, sadly.

Ford in Australia team up with fantasist big cat hunters to promote their SUV Puma

When you look at the pictures of the supposed big cats that these fantasists produce as evidence that they are roaming around the interior of the Australian continent, you are driven to a single conclusion namely that they are fantasists. In one picture there is a black cat on top of a tree stump and for all the world it looks like a domestic cat. How they can let their imagination run so wild as to believe that this is a black panther is beyond me.

Ford's new hybrid SUV the Puma. Photo: Ford

But Ford have jumped onto the bandwagon in their desire to promote their new Ford Puma SUV. It's just been launched and of course the name - as is commonplace - has been plucked from the wild cat species. The puma is a mountain lion which has the biggest distribution of all the wild cat species. And sometimes the puma can be black i.e. melanistic. So why not dive in and join up with these fantasists to promote the vehicle?

They think this is a big cat! Come on, please stop this. Photo Black Panther Sightings on FB.

At least Ford's new sport utility vehicle runs on a high-tech hybrid engine. I suppose they had to do that because you cannot, these days, bring out a new car unless it is at least a hybrid. But it is really time to stop pretending that there are big cats roaming around the countryside in countries where there are no big cats. These people are like UFO hunters. They are one and the same in terms of their mentality.

Perhaps it is a throwback to Neanderthal human thinking when people in that era genuinely had to fight for survival against the big cats. A time when they had to compete with them to survive. Maybe it's in our blood to be fearful of big cats and when you're fearful of them you think they are everywhere lurking in the forests and in the dark. Your imagination runs wild and you transform a sweet little black domestic cat into a black panther like the picture on this page. Compare the cat with the trees and fence and you know that it is a black domestic cat.