The next question then is how many?  Well, it is impossible to say but if you look at the sightings over the years, it must be hundreds at the very least across the UK, and it is certainly claimed by experts that the larger types of cats will travel and mark out their own territory in an area that could be up to a hundred and twenty square miles and can easily move between ten to twenty miles a day, or perhaps more appropriately at night when food is scarce.  By nature they are secretive and hide from man, preferring to move through undergrowth or countryside.  Also canalsides and riversides seem to be  places where they are often seen and of course these places go up and down the country, from port to port, town to town and coast to coast.  Looking at it another way, there are experts on the behaviour of rats who tell me we are never more than twenty feet from a living rat, but how often do we see them?  Not very often but it is a fact they are there apparently!  It is also a fact that these large cats have very developed senses that can smell and hear you coming, and when you do, I imagine they would just quietly slide away out of view.  I don't know, I may be wrong, but this is what I believe.  I also believe by now they may well have interbred and this has to be accepted as a strong possibility.  A story in the 26th October, 2000, issue of the Wolverhampton AdNews, claimed an expert from Dudley Zoo believed photos of paw prints found in a Wombourne garden were Big Cat in origin and this intimated 99%, that they could be prowling the area, perhaps even travelling to places such as nearby Kinver and Lower Penn near Wolverhampton.  The newspaper had run a feature about non-urban cats and had been so inundated with reports of such feline creatures they had also called in an expert zoologist to visit the areas with a reporter and give his opinions.
It is known by other experts that these big cats live only until about eighteen or twenty years of age.  Therefore, those that were left out in any numbers in 1976 (if this were the case) must now surely be dead and yet people are still seeing them.  So do we now have big cats naturally bred and developed in the wild in the British Isles?  I would say the evidence seems to suggest we do and it is back to the opinion that they may have interbred; scientists suggest that genetically this is certainly a possibility.  So now, as an example, if only one male leopard was released, together with only one female cougar, considering the miles they travel and their sense of smell, to be drawn to their own kind, a meeting and the ultimate development of mating at some stage would surely be a near certainty and the development of a new species would be on the way.
Of course, my main interest in this subject lies in the Midland areas, so now let me tell you of my own experiences and a few stories that have been passed on to me by fellow Midlanders, truthful people I believe, who frankly and plainly tell of what they have seen and experienced.  Firstly, I have seen in the Kinver area of the Midlands what I believe is a small black leopard-sized creature.  This was very early morning at the crack of dawn in the Compton area of Kinver.  Driving to Shatterford from Kinver along one of the lanes, the animal shot across the front of my car and leapt the hedgerow but in the short period I had to see it, I have no doubt that this was no cat of British origin and certainly far too big for anyone to label it thus. 
I also remember round about 1976 being told of a huge tabby cat that roamed the area between Willenhall and Walsall called Bentley Lane.  This creature also apparently visited the nearby Beechdale Estate and did not shun human beings and although it was extremely unfriendly, hissing at everyone it saw, would take scraps that were thrown to it.  This cat was seen by myself and my future wife many times and it was what I would describe as being a perfect example, right down to the black tip on its tail, as a Scottish wildcat, again perhaps a pet that had been released into the wild at that time. 
At Enville village close to Kinver, a former superintendent of police, a very sensible, down-to-earth man used to investigating matters unexplainable and those for which an answer had to be found, also saw a large black cat cross his path whilst he was driving throught the village, which he thought could have easily been a panther and which he described as being as big as a Labrador.  I found this gentleman was quite convinced he had seen what can only be described as a non-British massive black cat and I think this is one of the best reports of such a sighting I have come across.
I also visited and spoke to the people who came from Enville, including a lady who lives in the village.  She told me of the strange experience she had of hearing hissing and growling when she put the family cat out one night and then not seeing the cat for two nights.  When it did return home it was in a very distraught state and one can only ask the question - what made it flee in fright?  I also spoke to people at the interestingly named Cat Inn at Enville, including some who actually worked there, and they told me there are locals who for many a year have told stories of the black cat of Enville, but were people who shunned publicity.  One of the locals of Enville village, told me in his words, that one Friday he heard it again - a creature whose call was a very unusual screeching sound that could only be described as haunting.
Very recently, on film at nearby Telford and certainly in the travelling distance of such a large cat, on camera BBC Midlands Today telelvision showed film footage of what certainly looked like a large black puma-type cat in the brick factory that is situated in Telford.  Could this be one and the same cat?  When you consider the distances that such a creature could travel it is quite possible, for it is not only in country areas that these cats are now seen.

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