BIG CAT NEWS: A Suffolk Tiger, and the Beast of Smallthorne's crinkly ears

The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper column inches than any other cryptozoological subject.

There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived in some way by us, so we should have a go at publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in.

It takes a long time to do, and is a fairly tedious task, so I am not promising that they will be done each day, but I will do them as regularly as I can. JD

'Look what we found lion in town gardens'
Suffolk Free Press
To his surprise, the mystery caller's tip-off was right and there was, in fact, a big cat, more commonly found in the grasslands of South East Asia, roaming the town's gardens. “I couldn't believe it when I saw it hiding behind a tree,” said Bradley.


I haven't been to Sudbury since the two blokes who found a tiger in a municipal flower bed were in their nappies. Back in the day I worked for a famousish pop star who used to live there. It was a nice little town..

I thought the other day was a slow news day, but this particularly feeble story about a toy tiger in Suffolk is about as feeble as they come.

However, what I can report is that we have put out the trail cameras again on an area of privately owned woodland near Huddisford where there have been a string of sightings over the years. We will leave them up for at least a month.

Regular readers will remember all the gubbins about The Beast of Smallthorne the other day. We received two more handwritten letters from the bloke who claims to have taken the photographs. They both came in the post today:

Dear Jonathan Downes,

Thank you for your letter. I read Dr Shuker's hypothesis comparing the picture I took with the poster. Yes, they do look almost the same, but the difference needs to be taken into account. It is a fact that black leopards look similar, but there is a slight difference. The leopard has got crinkly ears. The leopard I saw on the 18th of this month is darker, and the eyes are lighter. If Dr Shuker took two photos of two pet black cats sitting in the same similar position, does that mean one of the photos is a crude cut and paste hoax?

And the other one reads:

Dear Sir,

Thank you for putting the photo I took of a big black panther Friday 18th February 16:09 2012, Ford Green Nature Reserve, Smallthorne, Stoke on Trent.

I have read the comments about the photo. Yes the image on the poster, does look like the photo I took, however a close-up shows a difference, the cat in the poster has got crinkly ears, markings are not as dark. The Photo is not a 'crude cut and paste hoax' and not been horizontally flipped. How did I get so close, as the comment says? Simple, I cropped the photo for close-up. You can magnify the photo, the photo is authentic.

Yours sincerely.

One has to admire the person's tenacity, as well as the fact that he seems so guile-less that we have his name and address, which we are not posting in order to preserve his privacy.

We are writing back tomorrow asking him to email the original, not a print, so that we can get an expert to have a look at it. In the meantime, and in the absence of any better evidence, I have to say, that I am pretty darn convinced that Doctor Shuker is correct!