Big black cat spotted in Norfolk

A mystery black cat, the size of a great dane dog, has been spotted in a Norfolk village.

Louisa Allen, who lives in Hevingham – a village inland from the North Norfolk coastline – was shocked to see the animal, which she believes was a panther, so close to her home.

“I called out to my son and we watched it together,” said Louisa. “It was completely black with a very distinctive downward-curling tail. It was about the size of a small great dane but it was longer in the body.”

Three years ago Hevingham became Norfolk’s “big cat” hotspot after more than a dozen sightings were reported in and around the village to the national organisation, Big Cats in Britain. But none had been seen until this sighting.

Bob Engledow, who used to run the monitoring site, said: “There are definitely big cats out there. People have admitted releasing them, after the 1976 Dangerous Wild Animals Act was introduced.”

In 2007 BCIB logged 675 sightings nationally – nearly two a day – of what were believed to be either pumas or panthers.

Read our FWiSpace thread on big cats.