Big Cat Conversations

Lee our first guest describes his close observation of a puma stalking fallow deer in Buckinghamshire. He watched the circling deer behaviour as they responded as a protective group to the advancing  predator, and he describes the fear he felt at finding himself so close to the scene.

John our second guest returns after episode 125, with more big cat stories from the Scottish Borders, including lynx in Kielder Forest and night-time ...

Dave our guest had two big cat encounters in East Hampshire in the 1990s.  We also hear some panther and puma incidents reported to him through his fishing and his zookeeper networks.

Dave also mentions rumours of canned hunting in the past as one of the origins of the large cats in Britain, and he describes some experiences overseas involving a captive lioness, a captive tiger, and escaped pumas.  

Words of the week:   blending into...

Our first guest Miriam had a close-up sighting of a puma back in 1968 in Surrey, while on an archaeological dig. She explains how she and her mother watched in silence before in slunk off. The local police followed up and found footprints from which they took casts.

Miriam was recruited as a podcast guest at the recent event, Depicting Britain’s Beasts, when she visited the Nature in Art specialist wildlife gallery. Poems from podca...

Charlie our guest recounts 6 months of his life at the age of 9 back in 1973-74. Around his house in Ayrshire his family lived alongside a female big black cat, seen active in fields and woods and at one stage she was lactating. 

Charlie regularly encountered the cat during spells when he escaped the ongoing stress at home. He describes its consistent behaviours, including its calls and its hunting. It took rabbits from his snares a...

Our first guest Malcolm was an arch sceptic on big cats being wild in Britain. Then one night driving home in 2011 he encountered a big black panther on the lane outside his property in Herefordshire. It rushed off, doing a long leap through a high gap in the hedge. Malcolm then asked around and found that other people in the area had also seen a panther around the same time.

Malcolm is coincidentally about 3 miles away from Craig, ...

Secrets of the hoax – real & imagined beasts

Our first guest Simon Lea had two close encounters with a large black panther at his farmholding in Oxfordshire. He later created the life-size metal panther that was positioned in Charlbury in a large garden close to the station. The ‘panther’ was spotted by train passengers and sometimes got reported as a real big cat, as previously discussed on ep 93 of the podcast. We hear the ful...

Our first guest Hugh Williams recounts his close encounter with a big cat on a Worcestershire hillside. He also runs the Mysteries of Mercia website which explores quirks of history and folklore in the midlands and Mercia. 

As well as discussing his panther incident, Hugh mentions other big cat sightings he’s heard of and even a dogman description he’s received. He also considers the treatment of big cats in folklore, he touches on ...

Cat Fight is the new novel from author Kit Conway which centres around big cat encounters in Kent, published in the UK in May and the US in June 2025. We speak to Kit about how Big Cat Conversations helped shape her ideas for the big cat aspects of the plot. The book has already been optioned as a future TV screenplay, and Kit discusses how she weaved big cat sightings into a novel about the developing frictions across a close comm...

John explores the wild forests and farmland of his local Scottish borders area.  

It’s a sparsely populated region where black panthers and lynx are quietly discussed by some of the locals.  John takes us through various lynx encounters, including two of his own, and describes his three experiences with large black cats – one seen nearby from a slow moving train, and one unnervingly close at night.  

John starts the episode by explai...

John met a “black panther” during his evening dog walks four times in 1996 in Staffordshire. On the first occasion he was confronted directly by the cat at close range. As the predator was poised, there seemed no easy way out. John explains his thoughts and the subliminal messages he received at that moment, as he reached in his pocket and unlatched his Swiss army knife… 

‘Big Cat Mystery’ outro track courtesy of Lancashire band DRI...

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...