Big cat: fact or fiction?

12 February 2009
Banbury Guardian
© 2009 Johnston Publishing Limited

WITH another sighting of the Banbury's big cat we ask you - is the big cat fact or fiction?

Two Banbury Guardian reporters have put forward and argument for each case; which do you think is the right argument?

FACT, by Roseanne Edwards

UNLIKE crop circles and UFOs there is evidence that big cats really are out there (www.britishbigcats.org) – though suggestion is powerful and people will imagine anything when given the germ of an idea. Big cat 'kittens' on chains were all the rage by the "footballers' wives" jet set of the 60s and 70s – like gold plated bath fittings and sunken baths.

But when the cats grew and became unmanageable, and worse, when the 1976 Dangerous Animals Act was introduced, some were taken to remote places and abandoned. Original owners have since owned up. Sightings run to thousands ayear nationwide and north Oxfordshire has had its share. We have credible witnesses including farmers who say big black cats frequent their fields seasonally. A horse's hideous scratches were deemed by a local vet to have beengouged by a big cat but the vet refused to be quoted in the Banbury Guardian.

We know kingfishers, minks, otters and other shy, private creatures live and breed in England but we never see them. How often do you see wild boar? Yet they proliferate in some areas,living, breeding, scavenging for food. Why not big cats?

FICTION, by Jemma Callow

PEOPLE will believe in what they want to be true and the idea of big cats secretly prowling the countryside proves this. If such creatures existed wouldn't there be hard-hitting, supporting evidence? Of course there would. But in 2009, after years of debates regarding their existence, there is still no concrete evidence to back this theory. And that is all it is, a theory.

If big cats exist, why have they never been captured clearly on camera? Footprints belonging to 'big cats' have never been confirmed beyond doubt but if they existed wouldn't there be clear, unquestionable evidence of their tracks? And if big cats are living out in the wild why has a carcass never been discovered? Surely they don't live forever?

The answer is simple. Because big cats are a myth. An idea which people are so desperate to believe in they will see the truth in anything.

It is true we may not often see a wild boar, a mink or an otter in thewild but how do we know they are there? Because when they are seenthey are captured clearly on camera and wildlife experts can find evidence of their existence – something that cannot be said ofthe so-called big cats, whose only existence can be found in people's imaginations.