Could big cat be on the prowl in Hampshire?
Two friends got a shock when they spotted a big cat walking calmly through a graveyard.
Linda Atkins, president of a local Women's Institute branch, was sitting with a friend in the car park of St Peter's Church, Hayling Island, when she spotted the creature slinking around the edges of the churchyard.
Shocked, the pair immediately stopped what they were doing and watched in awe as the greyhound-sized animal sauntered past them.
Mrs Atkins, 76, of Park House Farm Way, Leigh Park, said: 'I was talking to my friend Hilary Boxall when I spotted it out of the corner of my eye and said "Oh golly, look at that!"
'It was absolutely jet-black, about four or five times the size of a normal cat. It walked out from alongside the church and around the perimeter.
'We watched it for about 10 minutes before it disappeared into some bushes. We weren't scared, just very, very excited. I only wish we'd had a camera.'
Mrs Atkins, president of the Leigh Park WI, had been 10 minutes early for a WI meeting at the church in Selsmore Road. She said the other women were delighted when she told them what she and Mrs Boxall had seen.
It was not the first time a big cat has been spotted on the island. Sightings have been reported going back to the early 1980s, although the animals are usually sandy-coloured.
An African swamp cat was killed when it was hit by a car in West Lane in 1988. Its preserved body is now in Westbury Manor Museum in Fareham.
The body of the long-legged, sandy-coloured cat, about the height of a Labrador dog, was handed over to the Hampshire Museum Service and was preserved by a taxidermist.
Paul Westwood, from the organisation Big Cat Monitor, said 95 per cent of sightings were simply of large domestic pets.
He said: 'I think sometimes people's perspective can be skewed when looking at a black animal because they always appear to be bigger.
'It may just be a feral cat that can actually grow pretty big.'
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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