There have long been rumors of big cats roaming the British countryside.
Blurred photographs, large unexplained footprints, and dramatic eyewitness accounts routinely add to the mystery of their existence.
But now scientists say they have found definitive proof that a leopard is prowling the Lake District – after comparing DNA found on a dead sheep to a non-native big cat.
Professor Robin Allaby analyzed a sample taken from the sheep’s carcass and discovered ‘Panthera genus’ DNA – meaning it must have come from a lion, leopard, tiger, jaguar or snow leopard.
He said a leopard was most likely to be on British soil and that the exciting discovery was the first scientific evidence of non-native big cats roaming the UK.
Biologist Prof Allaby, who said he had always been “open-minded” about the existence of big cats in Britain, told BBC Wildlife magazine that the results of his test left him in no doubt that Cumbria was being stalked.
“That makes me a convert,” he said. “On the balance of probabilities, I think it’s a real hit.”
The sheep’s remains were discovered by Cumbrian Sharon Larkin-Snowden at an undisclosed mountain location in October.
It disrupted whatever was feeding on the carrion and the animal ran towards the stone wall before disappearing.
“I saw something black running and at first I assumed it was a sheepdog,” she said. “Then I did a double take and realized it was a black cat. He ran to a stone wall, stopped, and then jumped over the wall. It was big – the size of a German Shepherd.’
Ms Larkin-Snowden took a swab from the dead body and sent it to Rick Minter, host of the Big Cat Conversations podcast, who passed it on to Prof. Allaby.
He analyzed the sample in his laboratory at the University of Warwick and discovered both Fox and Panther DNA. He said the findings indicate that the sheep were eaten by both a fox and a big cat such as a leopard.
Professor Allaby said he was relatively confident that the sample, which contained only a small amount of big cat DNA, was not a fake, adding: “If it was a fake, I would expect a large amount of DNA to be present so we would definitely find it .
“It would be very difficult to plant just a few molecules with any finesse—I don’t think I could do it, let alone a layman.”
However, Prof Allaby said there was not enough DNA to determine exactly what type of big cat it came from.
He also said more samples were needed before he could publish a paper on his findings or say definitively that a big cat had roamed Cumbria.
But Dr Egil Droge, a researcher into predator-prey relationships at the University of Oxford, said he was sceptical.
He told the BBC: “There are no good photographs of big cats from the area, nor a spate of reports of sheep being killed. I would like to see more and repeated convincing evidence.
“If there was a big cat roaming around in England, you would expect to see clumps of slaughtered sheep. A big cat in an enclosed space like a field with sheep would very quickly result in many of those sheep being dead. That would not go unnoticed.’
Big cat claims in the UK are not a new phenomenon. The so-called Beast of Bodmin has been rumored to haunt the moors in Cornwall since the 1970s, and a DNA test on animal hair found in barbed wire in Gloucestershire in 2022 indicated the presence of the big cat.
And there have been many possible sightings in Cumbria since the turn of the century.
In 2015, 26-year-old hotel worker Nich Boden spoke to his local newspaper about fears he had been knocked over and knocked over by a big cat while walking in Tarn Hows Wood between Coniston and Hawkshead.
He claimed he awoke half an hour later with no memory of the attack, but bruises, a five-inch deep gash on his left shoulder and what appeared to be four claw marks on his forearm.
“I know it’s all a bit far-fetched but it seems very mysterious and not out of the realm of possibility,” Mr Boden told the Westmorland Gazette.