Kings Langley 'big cat' spotted...again (From Watford Observer)

Kings Langley 'big cat' spotted...again

12:41pm Wednesday 15th April 2009

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Another Kings Langley resident has come forward to report the sighting of a mysterious big cat in the village.

Tamsin Morris, of Rucklers Lane said she was “petrified” to discover the beast skulking around at the bottom of her garden.

These cats are potentially dangerous. Anyone who says they are not should visit a zoo and look through the fence at a leopard or lion and ask whether they’d like to go inside

Danny Nineham - big cat expert

The mum-of-two said she saw the lion in woodland behind her house on the morning of Thursday, March 26 – in a near identical location to where two boys claimed to see a big cat two weeks later.

She explained: “I was looking out my bedroom window and couldn’t believe what I saw – it was a lion in the woods at the end of my garden.

“It definitely looked like a lion, dark brown with a great big bushy tail – it was really the tail that gave it away.

“It was definitely no normal cat because of the way it walked; it took long lazy strides like only a big cat does. I was petrified. My children play in that garden so I called the police.

“They seemed to think I was mad and tried to tell me I must have seen something else but when I read about what those boys saw in the paper it proved I was right.”

The sighting to which Mrs Morris refers was made by teenager Liam Radmore. He was walking with a friend down nearby Barnes Lane on the evening of Wednesday, April 8.

He reported a creature with a “massive black tail and slouched back” standing in the middle of a field. It ran into nearby woodland when the boys, buoyed by youthful curiosity, approached it.

And that isn’t the only sighting in the village in recent memory.

We reported a similar sighting of a “dark brown” cat near Watford Road in October 2007.

Another witness, a motorist, came forward in February claiming to have spotted a “panther” in a field next to the M25 in Chorleywood.

Expert big cat hunter Danny Nineham investigates dozens of sightings around the country each year. He explained how a law, introduced in the 1970s, which banned the keeping of “exotic pets”, led to many big cats being released into the wild.

He said: “Since then they’ve bred in very large numbers. They’re no right at the top of the food chain because the only threat to them in humans. But most of us are completely ignorant of their existence.

“These cats are potentially dangerous. Anyone who says they are not should visit a zoo and look through the fence at a leopard or lion and ask whether they’d like to go inside.

“It’s almost unheard of that they would attack a person because they have such a lot of food available to them in this country.

“The problem comes when you disturb them in their natural habitat and they see you as a threat – then they can be dangerous and unpredictable.”

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