Matt Salusbury selects some highlights from Suffolk big cat reports, then John a landowner describes his three different sightings of a puma, a black panther, and two lynxes at play. We are then joined by Chris, who also saw the two lynxes after doubting John’s account.   

Words of the week:   Black Shuck

26 February 2021

Cameron Nicoll explains the ideas that shaped his film Rare Creatures, on the big cat sightings of the Kintyre peninsula, and local resident George describes his close encounter with a black panther, which his dog detected first. George views big cats as a new part of Kintyre’s identity – adding to its sense of wildness.

Word of the week:   mystery

12 February 2021

John takes us through several big cat sightings around Epping Forest, an ancient forest now busy with visitors on the north edge of Greater London, and we also hear from Mike who collided with a black panther driving on the A13 near the M25 in Essex.

Words of the week:   wood pasture 

29 January 2021

Laura describes her three black panther encounters in north Hertfordshire, each of which seemed a different cat, while Lian our second guest runs the County’s big cats Facebook group, with ongoing reports of panthers, pumas and lynx.

Word of the week:  exotic

15 January 2021

Ann, her son and their dogs disturbed a stalking panther on their evening walk in November 2020 – it was poised for attack as they watched events unfold…

Rick and Ann discuss several other reported big cat encounters across Gloucestershire in recent years.

1 January 2021

Word of the week:  safari

One night in the Derbyshire Peak District, Billy our guest had some unexpected company as he did his rail-line inspection.

Billy also explains why big cats might find railway lines convenient for food supply and for travel routes.  

Word of the week:   ABCs

19 December 2020

Annie re-lives several close encounters with a panther in Somerset in a nearby quarry in 1993 – a reminder that big cats were experienced many years past, and close to where similar reports happen now.

Annie now lives in southern Ireland and briefly considers big cat reports across the republic and Northern Ireland. 

Word of the week:   chatoyant

5 December 2020

Tim was amazed to see a black panther in fields neighbouring his house in Berkshire in 2020 – he’d previously seen one on Salisbury Plain in 2004, while our second guest Maria watched a tan coloured puma carrying a rabbit in its mouth in Gloucestershire, then sensed it lurking in the dark and spooking her dogs, in July 2020.

Both guests explain setting up trail cameras in the hope of filming the cats they encountered.

Words of the week:   green bridges

21 November 2020

David Hetherington, author of The Lynx and Us, re-lives the moment he was watched by a lynx in Switzerland and explains how the vivid wildlife and lynx photographs for his book were captured by Laurent Geslin. He considers when the lynx died out in the past in Britain and discusses how lynx reintroduction projects have been carried out in parts of Europe.    

7 November 2020

Word of the week:  lucerve

Maria in Cornwall saw a lynx leap away in her woodland, while Rob in Gloucestershire drove past a lynx walking along a roadside ditch – both our guests explain how these encounters changed their view of the British countryside.   

30 October 2020

Word of the week:  stochastic