Couple capture 'black panther' roaming Welsh countryside while kayaking
A couple have captured what they believe to be a black panther on film, wandering the Welsh countryside.
David Davis and his wife Natalie were enjoying a paddle on the Llangollen canal in Denbighshire last week (16 October) when they caught sight of the mysterious beast.
During their return trip around 5pm, David, 48, from Willenhall, West Midlands, was stunned by the sight that greeted him, which he suspected could be a black panther. "I spotted a cat in front of a gate in a field through the trees to my left," he recounted to Need To Know.
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He was initially baffled at spotting what appeared to be a cat from such a distance, with the animal positioned about 400 metres away at the top of the field.
Upon reaching a clearing in the trees, David had to balance his kayak to get a better glimpse. His astonishment grew as he became convinced that he was indeed looking at a black panther, reports Wales Online.
The creature was perched halfway up a farm gate and stretched nearly half its width, comparable in size to a large Alsatian dog. It presented itself sideways, giving David a clear profile view.
His wife, upon noticing the animal, couldn't help but exclaim, "Holy s**t it's a big cat". With Natalie's encouragement, David tried to capture footage of the animal, although he struggled to get a clear image.
The resulting video, shot from a distance and zoomed in, shows a sizeable black animal with an elongated tail traversing a field. The couple watched the creature for "two or three minutes" as it meandered down and then back up the field in a zig-zag pattern.
David reported that after the sighting, the creature disappeared into the forest. The incident piqued the interest of Rick Minter, who hosts the Big Cat Conversations podcast.
Commenting on the event, he said: "I can understand why the witnesses checked and filmed this cat."
"I have a domestic black cat and watch it in our neighbouring fields - this Llangollen cat seems bigger than mine. However, I don't feel it's the scale of a black leopard, which are the main cats described across Britain, and are also called panthers."
"It's tricky to gauge the scale in the Llangollen footage because of the distance and the short video clip. Personally, I feel the scale is more towards a domestic cat, albeit a larger one, than an adult black leopard."
"I don't believe it could take down a deer when I look at its apparent scale and its form. However, the region certainly yields credible sightings - I had several incidents of cats matching black leopards described to me at a visit to the Denbigh and Flint Show in 2023, when we produced a podcast episode from there."
"In some cases, people's dogs react as well, mainly nervously, during an encounter. So dogs as well as people see can sense these cats. Black leopards are stealthy and elusive, and people rarely see them in their native lands."