For at least two decades, Cumbria in Northwest England has been plagued by a mysterious predator.
Many have reported seeing the so-called “Beast of Cumbria” stealthily hunting and devouring the region’s sheep.
The description of this creature tended to be pretty uniform, with the Guardian reporting in 2021 that most believe it to be black and catlike, with glowing yellow eyes and roughly 1.2 meters, or 4 feet, of length.
Despite reported sightings since 2003 or earlier, confirmation of this beast’s existence was hard to come by.
That is, until this year, when Professor Robin Allaby at the University of Warwick was able to test some DNA samples from a recently deceased sheep.
Cumbria resident Sharon Larkin-Snowden, an amateur investigator of these big cat sightings, sent him the samples. She runs a Facebook group called “Big Cats in Cumbria” to document sightings and frequently confers with local scientists about the beast.
As Allaby told Discover Wildlife, after testing the DNA, he found it came from a cat in the Panthera genus and was most likely a leopard.
Allaby noted that before receiving this sheep carcass, an anonymous resident sent him a claw, which also came from a creature in the Panthera genus.
The academic also spoke to the Rhyl Journal to detail his findings. “The section we have sequenced is distinct to the group Panthera, which includes all the big cats: lions, tigers, panthers, leopards,” he described. “There was only a very small amount of DNA present, which again is not surprising. So we need more data from more samples to pin it down to a specific species.”
Do you believe big cats are roaming England?
Still, it seems clear that residents had not simply misidentified a fox or another such creature.
Rather, it seems that there was truly a black panther or some similar creature roaming around the countryside all this time.
Nor was it some kind of mysterious, supernatural creature.
Instead, it was possibly an exotic creature that escaped from a zoo or a menagerie.
Or, as that same Guardian article from 2021 suggested, it could have been released by its owners after the U.K. passed the Dangerous Wild Animals Act in 1976, which regulated the ownership of exotic animals.
And considering it seems to have been a panther attacking people’s flocks, it would be completely plausible that such a stealthy and cunning animal could exist in England’s greenways picking off sheep and other animals for years on end.
That said, it was incredible that the animal avoided any sort of official detection for over two decades.
Humans profess to be wise, and yet, sometimes, we have no idea what’s happening in our own backyards.
There could be a panther stalking your woods, for all you know, and you could be blissfully unaware of its presence for decades at a time.
Until it decided to maul some of your sheep, anyway.
