Big cats have long been rumored to roam the British countryside.
Blurred photos, large unexplained tracks and dramatic eyewitness accounts routinely add to the mystery of their existence.
But now scientists say they have found definitive proof that a leopard roams the lake area – after matching DNA found on a dead sheep to a non-native big cat.
Professor Robin Alabi analyzed a sample taken from the sheep’s carcass and found DNA from the genus Panthera – meaning it must be from a lion, leopard, tiger, jaguar or snow leopard.
He said a leopard was most likely on British soil and that the exciting discovery was the first scientific evidence that large, non-native cats roamed the UK.
Biologist Prof Alabi, who said he had always been “open-minded” about the existence of big cats in Britain, told BBC Wildlife magazine that his test results left him in no doubt that one was lurking in the Cumbria countryside.
“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 Cumbria resident Sharon Larkin-Snowden in an undisclosed mountain location in October.
It disrupted whatever was feeding on the corpse and the animal ran towards a 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 check and realized it was a black cat. It ran towards a stone wall, stopped and then jumped over the wall. It was big – about the size of a German Shepherd.
Ms Larkin-Snowden took a swab from the corpse and sent it to Rick Minter, host of the Big Cat Conversations podcast, who passed it on to Prof Alabi.
He analyzed the sample in his laboratory at the University of Warwick and found both fox and Panthera DNA. He said the findings showed the sheep had been eaten by both a fox and a big cat, such as a leopard.
Prof Alabi said he was relatively confident that the sample, which contained only a small amount of big cat DNA, had not been faked, adding: “If it was a fake, I would expect a lot of DNA to be present so we can be sure I will find him.
“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 Alabi 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 definitively say a big cat was roaming Cumbria.
But Dr Egil Droge, a researcher on predator-prey relationships at the University of Oxford, said he was skeptical.
He told the BBC: “There are no good pictures of big cats from the area, nor are there many reports of sheep being killed. I would like to see more and repeated, conclusive evidence.
“If a big cat roamed England you would expect to see groups of sheep killed. A large cat in an enclosed space, such as a field, with sheep, would very quickly lead to the death of many of those sheep. This 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 have stalked the moors in Cornwall since the 1970s, and DNA testing on animal hair found in barbed wire in Gloucestershire in 2022 indicated the presence of a 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 a local newspaper about fears he had been hit and knocked out by a big cat while walking in Tarn House Wood, between Coniston and Hawkshead.
He claimed he awoke half an hour later with no memory of the attack, but bruises, a deep 5-inch gash on his left shoulder and what appeared to be four fingernail 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.
