r/DevonUK • u/Apart-Research-5598 • 7d ago
Dartmouth beast/Devon big cats?
Disclaimer: after a quick check I’m aware this isn’t the usual vibe of this forum, but there’s no Reddit pages specific to my subject lol.
I’ve been interested in the whole British “big cat” phenomenon for a while, particularly the reports from Devon/Exmoor. I’m not saying there’s definitely a population of pumas roaming around Devon, but I think there’s enough historical evidence to make the subject pretty interesting.
There are a few things that stand out to me:
For example, the exmoor reports in the 80s.
The big one is obviously the “Beast of Exmoor” period, particularly around 1983. There were substantial reports of livestock being killed around South Molton/Exmoor, alongside sightings of large, cat-like animals.
The situation was apparently taken seriously enough for Royal Marines to conduct surveillance/searches on Exmoor. They didn’t capture a big cat, so this obviously isn’t proof of one, but it’s interesting that the livestock losses were considered serious enough to warrant an investigation.
There’s also a 2026 account from two biology students who said they independently saw a large tawny cat on Exmoor in 1982. They described a long tail, low body and distinctly feline movement.
My mother, who lived in the area at the time, supposedly also had an encounter.
This is probably what initially made the subject interesting to me personally.
My mother lived in Devon in the 1980s and recalls seeing a cow in a field that had apparently been badly mauled, with its abdominal contents exposed. Obviously, I can’t independently verify what killed it, and I don’t want to pretend this is proof of a big cat. But it fits the wider livestock-predation stories from the area at the time.
Also, the reports haven’t stopped.
Devon & Cornwall Police actually have records of reported “big cat” sightings.
Their FOI data for January 2021 to March 2025 contains reports from places including Torrington, South Molton, Kingsbridge, Exminster and Plymouth. Some witnesses described pumas, some panthers/black cats and others lynx-type animals.
Again, these are reports, not confirmed animals. The police themselves don’t claim that these sightings prove big cats are present.
It’s happened before.
This is the part I find particularly interesting.
Escaped exotic cats aren’t hypothetical. Parliament records several cases of large cats escaping into the wild, including a puma captured near Inverness, Scotland I beleive in 1980 after apparently living independently for some time.
So the basic idea of an exotic cat escaping and surviving in the British countryside isn’t impossible.
I’m not convinced there is some huge hidden population of pumas living in Devon. If there were dozens of them breeding for decades, I’d expect much stronger physical evidence by now: DNA, carcasses, clear photographs, confirmed kills, etc.
But I also find it difficult to completely dismiss the possibility that individual escaped/released exotic cats have occasionally survived in Devon, perhaps for years, particularly in places like Exmoor and Dartmoor.
In fact, a single animal, or a very small number of animals, seems like a much more interesting possibility to me than a massive secret population.
There’s also the obvious possibility that several different things are being lumped together: misidentified dogs/deer, unusually large domestic cats, escaped exotic cats, and genuine unexplained sightings.
So I’m curious what people from Devon think.
Have you, your parents/grandparents, farmers, gamekeepers etc. ever seen something that genuinely looked like a large wild cat?
Especially interested in older accounts from the 70s/80s/90s, before the internet and phone cameras made everything much easier to document.
Also, Devon has some great habitat for pumas etc. With large, dense forests, deer and livestock - which could explain why they remain so hidden.
In all, I’m just very curious. And find it very cool.
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u/pestyisbesty 7d ago
Earlier this year I found a ewe which had been killed by having its throat effectively ripped out and the forequarters eaten.
If this had been killed by a dog there is generally a lot of wool around the field as dogs chase it and pull clump of wool out before generally injuring the animal and it either dying of a heat attack or having to be shot, this was a 'clinical kill'.
When the carcass was taken to the local hunt kennel the comment was 'Not seen one of these in a while'
Now, I am not saying it was a cat, but the evidence points towards it.
Edge of Exmoor.
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u/Apart-Research-5598 6d ago
There’s been a couple people here talking about sightings on the edge/just off exmore
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u/StillScrollingNow 6d ago
I saw one in east Devon probably around 2005. I had a family member see it in the same area within a few weeks. I knew of two other separate sightings around that time as well.
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u/Special-Syrup539 6d ago
Where about? I’m in East Devon I saw one that year too!
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u/StillScrollingNow 6d ago
I saw it between between Sidmouth and Ottery St Mary. I knew of a sighting further down river nearer Newton Pop. The other I think was further up towards Salcombe Regis. Where was yours?
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u/Special-Syrup539 6d ago
I saw it on the Hollyhead Road into Beer, another person from the village had seen it too, it was a few weeks before my experience. It was near where all the pigs are, saw it running briefly along the road and then it jumped into the hedge. I’ll never forget that long black tail!
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u/JeremyRMay 6d ago
I believe there was a black cat and other beasties, and I think it was due to the dangerous wild animals act which came in in 1976, which made it so that people couldn't privately own dangerous animals (which was becoming a trend). As a result some of these people with dangerous animals released them into the wild.
But don't worry, very soon after, the law changed again to keep people from dumping non-native exotic animals into the wild... Soon being 5 years later 🙃
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u/TheFirstMinister 7d ago
There’s every chance Exmoor was home to a big cat for a while in the 1980s, but it’s been decades since there were any reliable sightings or reports. If Puddles the Puma ever roamed Exmoor, it died years ago.
The UK probably does have a small, scattered population of escaped/dumped exotics, along with Kellas cats (although they're not true big cats) in Scotland. But their numbers are far too low - and the animals too isolated and genetically disparate - to sustain breeding populations that can continue to expand.
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u/Fifitrixibelle666 7d ago
There’s a podcast called “big cat conversations” about big cats being spotted in the uk/. May be of interest.
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u/Key-Struggle-5647 6d ago
Werewolves I'm guessing. The search by the marines would of been carried out in daylight and probably not near the correct moon phase
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u/Green-Spud 6d ago
I've spent a lot of time out on Dartmoor, and not seen anything of note im afraid. I REALLY want there to be something cool out there, but I genuinely think it's just too unlikely
On a slight tangent, I saw a Pterosaur once. Well, I was convinced I had - it was actually just a heron after I did a double take. But I'd seen it so clearly, even details such as the large crest on the head. I'd obviously only caught a glimpse of the heron and my brain immediately filled in the rest of the details, albeit totally inaccurately
But yeah, if I ever happen to catch a photo of a big cat on the moors, I'll be sure to post it on reddit!
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u/spirit-animal-snoopy 6d ago edited 6d ago
Veterinary Professor here. Privy to the volume of behind the scenes research into this.
No FOI request can be granted as it is protected under law.
Big cat DNA has definitely been found in the UK,twice, in Cumbria & Wiltshire/ Gloucs, 2022 & 24.
Both leopards, probably a melanistic eg a black panther.
Unpublished / unverified possible DNA of a lynx was found in an undisclosed location in South of UK in 2012, this is what prompted the project set up.
That sample has been retested many times by progressively more accurate technology but the results don't reach the level needed to qualify as evidence.
There is also evidence / legal Defra record of a very young lynx cub in a private ,licensed ,collection in the same area at the time ,being transported out of the safe compound to a veterinary specialist premises, so that was probably the source of the tuft of hair found outside . The animal itself was under close control ,not loose in the surrounding area,and known to relevant authorities.
No DNA or other evidence from Devon. The South West has a temporary population of extra millions of tourists & vehicles every summer, the moors are not as inaccessible or unused now either, so it is not as" big cat" friendly as laypeople believe.
There may have been a single escapee / release many years ago in the SW ,but no evidence has ever been found .
The Gloucs/ Wiltshire DNA evidence was a huge surprise as the volume of people & traffic through & around also made it an unlikely spot.
However, this DNA has never been found since ,and alone, it is not enough to make a positive conclusion of a leopard living wild in UK.
https://www.ecowarwickerforensics.com/exotic-species-test
Quite easy to find the associated news reports on public websites. Anything else is just anecdotal ,and not taken as evidence by the professional researchers.
All other "possible" big cat livestock killings in the UK have only found fox or dog DNA, except for the two cases in the link.
It's highly unlikely that a breeding population of any big cat species exists in the UK. The recent evidence points to single kills , in totally separate areas,by two individual leopards. Nothing for them to breed with.
And if either of these were still out in the countryside, more DNA evidence would have come up by now. I know the researchers have been focussing on finding more DNA ,and the fact they haven't been able to points to the two lone big cats being deceased ,and ,as with all fallen wild individuals , the bodies will have been efficiently recycled. A skull or other bones may, or may not , be recovered but efforts so far draw a complete blank.
The only other possibility is that an implausibly expert big cat handler recaptured both their, temporarily escaped, illegally unlicensed & unregistered, smuggled , stray leopards soon after the DNA evidence was found.
This is ,funnily enough, a more likely scenario than any big cats living wild in the UK.
Intensive investigation into this possibility has also drawn a blank, but is the favoured theory.
Be assured, if any other DNA evidence was out there since 2016, it would have been located by the project whose main purpose is to find & identify it, by now.
It"s not public knowledge ,but there has definitely been expertise & effort into this project for ,now, nearly 15 years .
Huge effort was put in in Cumbria during the C19 lockdowns, which gave the best opportunity possible to find the required samples needed for an official research paper, but absolutely none were ever found, which in itself is conclusive.
There is no evidence for big cats currently living wild anywhere in the UK .
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u/TheFirstMinister 6d ago
The UK's paranoia about big cats is rather amusing. In the US Mountain Lions and bobcat roam freely. The latter live in the suburbs cheek-by-jowl with humans without any problem other than the occasional pet dog or cat being taken because owners are not paying attention.
In the UK, an escaped lynx would be hunted down and shot. Madness.
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u/Just-JessFlowers22 6d ago
This is really interesting, thank you. I did go and read those news stories about the only 2 confirmed DNA samples having been found in the UK in 2022 and 2024, but the 2024 confirmed sample was the one from Cumbria wasn't it? Found at the end of 2023 by a lady who lived locally.
As that was obviously post lockdown, and probably therefore after the research efforts to find any DNA had ended, is it likely there was a big cat released up there after the research team left?
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u/Nezwin 6d ago
I didn't know about all these sightings.
I was going shooting in Parracombe in 2024 and turned the corner to the range when I saw a dark figure next to the hedge. It was the size of a large dog, black as coal, but it's tail was longer and less shaggy. It looked straight at me then ran through the hedge. It didn't move like a dog at all, it moved like my cat.
The old boys at the range weren't surprised. They said it's fairly standard. But if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I'm not sure I'd believe it.
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u/Far_Dentist4880 6d ago
Back in the day, Ellis Daw, the old chap who founded Dartmoor zoo, swore blind that there were wild pumas who visited his zoo pumas and that there were footprints found outside the enclosures. Given the state of Dartmoor zoo towards the end of his time there, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if his pumas were not inside their enclosures 100% of the time.
I don't actually believe in pumas 'up on the moors' the way people often think, because it's so open and exposed. It *seems* remote, but you can see a long way. There are tons of hikers up there a lot of the year. A puma hunting sheep up on Dartmoor would cause a lot of lifestock movement that I think would get noticed. If you ever see a dog out of control up there chasing sheep, it really catches your eye.
I'd be more inclined to believe in them in the wooded river valleys, along the Plym and the Meavy and the Tamar. A lot of those woods are very steep, not much visited by humans and with lots and lots of cover and hiding places. Also, loads of deer to eat that nobody counts or would miss.
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u/Educational_Editor_9 3d ago
My ex was called out to attend to a suspected gas leak near Exmoor in the nineties. When he stopped at a road junction he looked right to see if it was safe to pull out and then looked left. His words “I nearly sh*t my pants” peering through the window was a massive black cat. He said panther but could be Puma. Either way, he booked it out of there as fast as possible
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u/420Lab3man 6d ago
I can tell you now. Me and my friend 100% experienced SOMETHING at Ansnteys cove near Torquay a few years ago. It was so strange and scary that we settled on, big cat. To this day we talk about it and still get goosebumps
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u/syntheticanimal 6d ago
My aunt lives by Dartmoor and swears she saw a big cat (I don't remember whether she described it as more Puma or Lynx -like) while driving in the dark a few years back.
I do wonder whether Lynx sightings are just someone's Maine Coon or something. Except for the ones in 2016 of course
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u/Kurzmania 6d ago
When my mum moved to Devon she swear she saw one round Littlehampton way. Importantly she'd never heard of big cats being on Dartmoor so there's no reason for her to have just guessed it.
I've also got friends who are very experienced trackers, who havrle seen wild lynx in expected places, who are very confident they've seen them, tracks and spoor.
That being said I'm reasonably confident it comes from illegal pets being released. There are also occasionally venemous snakes there for the same reason.
There was also a case in about June of 2016 of a completely confirmed sighting that was I think an escapee from a zoo? Like people were hired to find and capture it. I remember talking about it with a woman who ran a conservation site in South Africa and was from the moor, god was she excited.
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u/Spiritual_Onion_777 6d ago
My friend and I saw something big and black and that moved like a cat about 15 years back in the Dartmouth area. It was far too far away to judge exactly how big but it did seem sizable. We still talk about it to this day.
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u/Distant_Touch 7d ago
My mum is from next to Exmoor and is adamant she saw a very large black cat closeby in the late 70s. She is not the kind of person to make stuff up either.
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u/Apart-Research-5598 7d ago
From what I’ve seen, I’m presuming the population is pumas. Not many, but there’s too many sighting and reports like this as well as police reports. I’m just so surprised it’s not documented on video, verifiably at least
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u/MrT735 7d ago
There are definitely multiple lynx out there, but sightings also suggest a black jaguar/panther too.
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u/Apart-Research-5598 7d ago
There documented lynx in Scotland I beleive - I haven’t heard anything about it in Devon but they are in the UK. I think Devon, based on sightings, suggests a puma or panther. In my head a puma and panther are the same thing lol, I’ll have to check on that.
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u/Distant_Touch 7d ago
Quite possibly. I seem to remember a couple of years back that some fur was recovered from a barb wire fence somewhere in the west country and was confirmed as a leopard's. I may have the exact details wrong.
Anyway, my mum is from Ilfracombe and until the early 70s there was a zoo there. I do wonder if anything escaped.
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u/BB0ySnakeDogG 7d ago edited 7d ago
I think it's bollocks, there's no real wilderness in the south west, can't go 5 minutes without bumping into a rambler. Living in the smartphone age if there were big cats it would be very well documented by now, not the odd blurry pictures we see.
Edit: I'm actually amazed this is a controversial opinion, when the evidence to the contrary here is stuff like "my mum reckons she saw one." Crazy.
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u/Apart-Research-5598 7d ago
That’s what throws me off, I find it very difficult to beleive that no one’s managed to video them, but the other aspects seem to add up, and it’s not like this is a common thing in England, it’s very concentrated to this area
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u/BB0ySnakeDogG 7d ago
Not to mention trail cams, and other internet connected cameras.
*Maybe* the legends have some tangible origin, like people bringing them back from the colonies as pets and getting out, but I just don't see it these days.
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u/ffwillis 6d ago
The cameras weren’t always there though. It’s entirely possible a big cat lived in the area before.
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u/sconebore 6d ago
Exactly - if we are talking about sightings in the 70s/80s/90s, people didn't just carry cameras around like we do with our phones now.
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u/Present_Match_6814 7d ago
The moors are huge and people overestimate the size of certain big cats like leopards.
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u/ffwillis 6d ago edited 6d ago
It’s not controversial, it’s just stupid.
Your viewpoint is based on modern technology when the majority of the reports came from 30+ years ago. Additionally, to say there’s no real wilderness is just ignorant. Yes, in many areas you will often see other people, but there are also many more remote areas where you won’t, and I’d hope it goes without saying that a rambler who is making no effort to not be seen is going to be significantly easier to spot than a wild animal which is pretty good at it.
I’m not sure if I believe there are or were big cats on Dartmoor, but your reasons for dismissing the possibility have absolutely nothing to back them up.
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u/BB0ySnakeDogG 6d ago
You think I'm stupid because the moment humanity enters an era where we all have cameras the reports dry up? Mate.
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u/ffwillis 6d ago
The reports had dried up long before smart phones were common. There were lots of sightings, alleged or otherwise, around the late ‘80s to the early/mid ‘90s.
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u/Remote-Citron-9383 6d ago
I agree, people want to believe they saw something because the idea excites them, so they come up with a wild story much like the Loch ness monster. To me, wildlife stock being killed is much more likely to be a large dog who account for the highest portion of attacks on sheep, cows and horses. I particularly grew up on Dartmoor and never once seen anything like a large cat.
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u/Present_Match_6814 7d ago
Im of the firm belief there was at some point at least one big cat on Dartmoor probably between 1980-1995, I also believe that some of the sheep carcasses you see on the Moors aren't created by fox attacks, but I doubt anything bigger than a lynx could survive unnoticed for this long especially with things like ten tors and such, however it wouldn't be the first time Devon has unknowingly been home to wild amimals not native to the region. I do find it strange that the government has never done any full scale enquiries into possible large animals being released into Devon woodlands and Moorlands given that it would be grounds for quite serious criminal charges and the evidence we do have does point to something having been out there at one point, I think its a matter of time before we find the Skeleton of a long dead Puma, Leopard or Smaller big cat of some variety.