Lock your doors! Bar your windows! The
Harborough Mail reports a new sighting of the Black Beast of Harborough:
A large black labrador-sized animal was seen near Arthingworth.
It was spotted from about 40 metres away through a low-powered telescope on Wednesday, May 2.
The report, made to the Big Cats in Britain group, described the animal as black with white patches on the front.
It was definitely not a dog, said the report.
The incident is the latest in a series of sightings of ‘black beasts’ stalking the Harborough countryside which go back as far as the 1990s.
These include sightings at Arthingworth, Kibworth, East Farndon and in Harborough.
We blogged about a sighting of the
Black Beast in Foxton at the start of the year. More, as ever, on
Rutland & Leicestershire Panther Watch.
Why do we only ever hear reports of black big cats when most such creatures are naturally spotty or stripy? You never hear of a spotty one yet leopards, amongst others, are usually so adorned and indeed, according to the received wisdom, find it hard to alter this condition. Two thoughts spring to mind; either these sightings are of black big cats of that exotic kind that really do exist, especially as unnecessary ‘pets’ in Essex culture, or these barely glimpsed ‘beasts’ are not big cats at all. Both of these thoughts are dispiriting in different ways; I rather like the idea of large feral felines wild in our land, subject to usual provisos about whether they are damaging our native wildlife in an unsustainable way. I will continue to look forward to hearing of a spotty one, however.
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