The Beast of Bodmin Moor

The Mysterious Cats of Britain

The Beast of Bodmin Moor, like the better known Bigfoot and Yeti, is a creature that does not leave us alone. Can large mysterious cats roam Bodmin Moor in southwest England and other places in England without leaving any conclusive proof of its existence? Or is this all just unproven cryptozoology?

What is the Beast of Bodmin Moor, and where did it come from? Some call it an ancient, native animal, thought to been driven to extinction, that escaped to our time. Or is it a modern exotic pet that has escaped its cage and the arm of the law? Animals do escape from zoos and parks every year. Since the 1970's private ownership of big cats has been illegal in Britain. So if one escaped, its owner would hesitate to report it.

Although a government report in the mid-1990's concluded that the Beast of Bodmin does not exist, a stready stream of evidence suggests that there are different populations of mysterious cats scattered across Britain that just barely evade detection as they have perhaps evaded extinction, snug in the dark byways of cryptozoology (the study of hidden animals).

The mysterious cats of Britain have been attracting attention for a long time. There was a newspaper report of a tiger hunt in Sherwood Forest dating from 1827.

Real evidence supporting the Beast of Bodmin Moor and other mysterious cats in Britain has been found, most spectacularly, a huge skull with large fangs. Biologists at the British Natural History Museum identified it as a large cat not usually found in England.

The BBC reports that volunteers with the Royal Air Force have turned to the military's night vision equipment to try to document the Beast of Bodmin Moor as well as to practice skills that the RAF has used in Kosovo and Kuwait.

It is believed that the native lynx has made a return, and in 2001, local police and inspectors from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals captured a lynx in a suburb of London, which they believe to have been an escaped exotic. In 2007, however, a picture alleged to be of the Beast of Bodmin Moor turned out to be a photo of a squirrel.