Is a panther loose in Harpenden?

11:24am Sunday 16th October 2005

A LARGE animal thought to be a big cat has been spotted in Harpenden just weeks after a similar feline was caught on CCTV in Hertfordshire.

A woman out walking her dog spotted the panther-like animal on Bower Heath Lane and reported it to the police on October 3.

An animal believed to be a puma was caught on CCTV in the car park of a security firm in Hertfordshire in September.

The Big Cat Society, which was called in when the beast appeared, would not reveal the exact location where it was captured on camera in case someone tried to find it and shoot it.

The Plymouth-based organisation said it had confirmed a sighting reported in Harpenden two months ago but had received no calls from the area since.

Spokesman Danny Bamping said: "These animals cover huge distances. They can do 25 kilometres in a night so a cat seen in Hertfordshire could then be spotted in Cambridgeshire or Oxfordshire."

The latest sighting comes a week before the release of a report by the Big Cat Society which will detail more than 2,000 big cat sightings in 15 months, including 19 in Hertfordshire.

The extraordinary report will reveal the finding of big cat corpses as evidence that they are breeding in the wild.

Cats believed to be roaming wild in Britain include lynxes, pumas, black panthas, jungle cats and leopards.

"Around 65 per cent of the cat sightings are of black cats," said Mr Bamping.

"Up to 30 per cent of sightings may not be of big cats at all and we get some great hoaxes."

He advised anyone who sees a big cat not to approach or threaten it but to report it online at www.britishbigcats.org.

A spokesman from Hertfordshire Constabulary insisted that residents should not be alarmed by the recent sightings but encouraged anyone who thinks they see a big cat to report it to the police.