DNA Swab on Sheep Carcass Appears to Confirm Mysterious Sightings of Strange Beast
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
For at least two decades, Cumbria in Northwest England has been plagued by a mysterious predator.
Many have reported seeing the “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, about 4 feet long with glowing yellow eyes.
Despite reported sightings since 2003 or earlier, confirmation of this beast’s existence was hard to come by.
That is, until this year, when Robin Allaby, a professor 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 the BBC’s Discover Wildlife, after testing the DNA, he found it came from a cat in the Panthera genus and was most likely a leopard.
He 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 section we have sequenced is distinct to the group Panthera, which includes all the big cats: lions, tigers, panthers, leopards,” the academic said, according to the Rhyl Journal.
“There was only a very small amount of DNA present, which again is not surprising,” Allaby said. “So we need more data from more samples to pin it down to a specific species.”
Still, it seems as though residents hadn’t simply misidentified a fox or another such creature.
Nor was it some kind of mysterious supernatural beast.
Rather, it appears a black panther or something similar has roamed around the countryside.
It could be an escapee from a zoo or a menagerie.
Or, as The Guardian suggested, it could have been released by its owners after the United Kingdom passed the 1976 Dangerous Wild Animals Act, which regulated the ownership of exotic animals.
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.
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