So does 1 captured in 1980 indicate there are more or someone let out a pet they shouldn’t have been keeping?
There have been rumours of black panthers in Australia for many years - with the mythology being that supposedly the British army had a few as mascots on bases in the early years of colonisation, that were escaped or let out - no one has ever captured/killed one but every now and then there is a blurry video/photo captured on a potato.
Australian wildlife is absolutely useless at defending itself even from human tourists who want to run up and cuddle, and would be an easy ongoing feast for any real predator. So I’m 100% in the camp of it all being bullshit.
I cannot vouch for Australia. But yes I am 100% certain there are wild living big cats in the uk & yes they are released/escaped pets.
Look up “big cat conversations” podcast. Lots have people have had credible sightings from police officers to vets etc.
It’s not that outlandish that some idiot makes a purchase of an animal from teh illegal animal trade and it gets loose! For example, I have bought snakes legally from a guy, who also dabbles in selling snakes you’d legally require certification for owning, illegally!
I do not know now. But from that podcast, one episode claimed a lot of them came through from Ireland of all places. Exotic cats from Africa were exported illegally to Ireland, then easily smuggled to mainland UK. Big cats were bought and sold left right and centre perfectly legally here for many decades, but teh dangerous and wild animal act made it much more expensive to keep them!
We’ve always had a small population of Jaguars. Lewis and Clark described not only seeing lions (mountain lions) but also cats they called leopards (jaguars).
Well, hell, looking at the thousands of reticulated pythons out in the swamps of Florida - clearly a non-native species, but enough jackass owners released them (or they escaped) when they got big, and enough males and females found each other, and now the goddamned things are a problem. No natural predators and a food rich environment - it’s no wonder the state government pays people to hunt them and kill them.
Although I think it would be pretty funny if some asshole escaped Alligator Alcatraz and got wrapped up by a huge python
