Big Cat Conversations

Bonus feature - British wolverines?

Our first guest Darren was asked to despatch a troublesome fox in south Wales in 1998. In the snowy conditions he actually saw a puma though his gun sights – he re-lives the high emotions on the winter hillside as bright green eyeshine stared back.  

Rick and Darren also consider the prospects of a big cat  being trapped, and they discuss an event in 2011, when the police and the Home Office verifi...

Andrea is a podcast listener in Victoria, Australia. She didn’t expect to experience big cats on her land. But she explains how events and sightings have indicated she has visiting pumas, which seem to predate kangaroos, wallabies and rabbits. 

She looks after two pure dingoes, which have reacted to calls and movements of what appear to be a nearby big cat. Andrea discusses life with the dingoes, and her heightened awareness of new ...

We return to Cumbria for latest news of the mother and cub black leopards, being experienced by Liz on nearby land to her property. In autumn and winter sightings Liz has noticed longer fur develop on the mother, as well as alarm calls from magpies harassing the cats.  Liz and Rick discuss the challenges of getting evidence from this ongoing case.

UPDATE:  Between recording and then releasing this interview with Liz, she reports tha...

Two retired police officers report their big cat encounters and incidents, including black leopards & lynx. We conclude the episode with comments on the January 2025 lynx release & capture saga from Paul Macdonald of Scottish Big Cat Research.

Andrew our first guest from County Durham recounts his encounter with what he believes was a black leopard, when walking his dog in 2003.  Through his police activity he then learnt ab...

Our end-of-year extended episode features Mandy from Worcestershire and Jon from neighbouring Herefordshire.

Mandy explains the events which led to her setting-up a big cats Facebook group in Worcestershire, as a hotline for reports and discussion. Her own sighting was a close-up view of a black leopard type of cat, and instantly drew her to the subject.

Jon watched a puma slink through his garden one night in 2003, close to the hous...

Tommy had two sightings of black panthers in the north of Exmoor as a teenager in the 90s.  His first viewing was of a mother guiding a small cub, which made a lasting impression on him. 

Tommy recounts a local vicar’s sighting of a big black cat at the time, and he explains how local teenagers related to the Exmoor Beast legend. Later in his army career, Tommy heard fellow soldiers admitting to seeing pumas on Ministry of Defence l...

Liz describes several encounters with a black leopard visiting the farmyard where she and her husband feed the farm cats. She has been watched and advanced on by the large cat and is now fully alert to its potential presence.  

On one occasion Liz noticed a small panther like cat dart out of cover to catch up with the big cat, and realised it was a cub rushing to its mother.   

Liz reports how the farm cats change behaviour due to th...

Craig our guest returns after episode 72 when he re-lived his Exmoor big cat encounters in the 1980s.

Now based in Herefordshire, Craig explains the big cat reports and potential activity occurring in his own village, right where he walks his dogs. He has been followed by an animal with large piercing eyeshine which alarmed his dogs, and he has recently found two fresh deer carcasses, one freshly devoured, and the other was still wa...

Our first guest Graham recounts a close encounter with a large black cat on the Isle of Skye during one of his fishing trips. We discuss how a cat like a black leopard could have arrived on Skye and how well such a cat could go unnoticed in the island’s wild terrain.  

For our second guest we catch up with Scotland research coordinator Paul Macdonald. Amongst recent highlights he describes two clips of footage shown to him at a rece...

In this Summer edition we discuss pumas encountered in the wild on the England & Wales border in the Wye Valley, but we also visit a special sanctuary for re-homed exotic pets, also in the Wye Valley area. 

Our first guest Grant, explains how he and friends were advanced on by a puma when they were out lamping foxes one night. Grant describes the intense eye shine and what happened as the cat got closer…

Our second guest Lindsay ...

Steve our guest trains his working gun dog, a springer spaniel every morning at dawn. We hear of four occasions when he’s encountered a large black cat in his local Cheshire countryside.  For one of the sightings the animal had a pronounced limp.  On the BCC website (Refs & Links, Ep 113) Steve compares his sighting to the footage of a limping large black cat filmed in Scotland last year.

Steve and Rick also discuss the footage ...

Our first guest Richard recounts a sudden episode of big cat reports from his time as a local police officer in Wiltshire. One of the cases involved a threatened domestic cat.

In the second part we catch up with tracker and wildlife guide Mark Graves who was first on ep 95. He explains why some photographed footprints and plaster casts are evidence for big cats in Scotland and in Dorset, and he discusses a call which matches a leopa...

We hear from Andy and from Gail, the different witnesses mentioned by Nick on his farm in episode 109. Andy and Gail speak about their own various big cat incidents during their farm visits, and they have each had one close up account… 

Andy confronted a large black “panther-leopard” one evening at the barns. Gail was on her way to the campsite portaloo when she watched a big black cat sitting in the early morning sun.

The cat-like f...

In this Cumbria update we discuss new DNA evidence with Sharon Larkin-Snowden following her input to episode 101. 

In October 2023 Sharon found a freshly consumed sheep carcass. Without realising, she also disturbed a big black cat at the scene. Later she swabbed the carcass for any saliva present, for a lab test. She and Rick discuss the DNA result which came back from the University of Warwick  

Sharon and her husband Ian describe ...

Nick runs a farm in the English midlands which is now transforming to wildlife friendly woods and meadows.  Amongst the farm’s wildlife are sightings and signs of big cats. 

Nick recounts people’s big cat encounters in the area and he describes the suspicious prints and the potential big cat lay-up spot found on his farm. 

He runs the farm in the knowledge that big cats have become part of the local wildlife, using the network of woo...

Eliza and two of her Cubs group friends came close to a black panther “with ears like a teddy bear” in their local Country Park in Spring 2023.  The location is a big greenspace, busy in the daytime with families and visitors on the edge of town, adding to the shock and surprise felt by Eliza and friends.  

Eliza and her mum Sarah join us to discuss the difficulties of young people being believed when they report a big cat. Sarah an...

Janet is based in a remote corner of Argyll. She was unaware of the area’s long history of big cat reports until events kicked off close to her house in 2023. She explains the warning calls and the sightings she experienced locally and coincidentally when visiting Aberdeenshire. 

Janet is a professional photographer and explains how she is adapting her range of camera kit in preparation for big cats, especially in darkness and low l...

We hear from Paul, an investigator near John O’Groats in north-east Scotland.  He re-tells several big cat sighting reports from recent years, and he explains his use of trail cams, night vision cameras, and lures.    

Last summer he followed up a local black leopard report, then found himself in a dense woodland with a growling cat just a few feet away. The scary incident took a twist later that night… 

Words of the week:   nape bit...