5. Beast Of Bodmin Moor
A British media darling in the 1990s, the Beast of Bodmin Moor is an example of what cryptozoologists refer to as an ABC (Alien Big Cat), that is to say a large, apparently wild, felid that is not native to the area in which it is seen. In 1996 alone, there were about 300 hundred reported sightings of the beast. In the early 1990s, livestock in Cornwall began being slaughtered in a manner considered by some to be consistent with big cat attacks. From there, reports of a large black cat roaming the region began flooding in from all across the area. The generally proposed theory is that a small group of pumas were kept as part of private collections and were eventually released (or escaped), where they now roam the British countryside in search of food. That part, at least, is possible. In 1976, the British Animal Act introduced much tougher sanctions on those keeping exotic wildlife and evidently, some odd animals were released into the wild as a result. A hoaxed leopard skull (which had once been part of a rug) discovered in the summer of 1995, did as much to damage the credibility of reports as it did to excite interest in this strange phenomenon. Scientists generally consider the British environment to be unsuitable for a breeding population of big cats, suggesting that the terrain offers neither the required food supply, nor the ideal climate, for a puma-like creature to survive. Although most (if not all) sightings of the beast can be attributed to misidentified housecats (especially when viewed or photographed from a distance with no frame of reference to properly extrapolate the creatures size), at least one photograph, taken in 1997 appears to depict a pregnant puma and is perhaps the best evidence for the creatures existence. Anomalous animals similar to the Bodmin Beast (in particular The Surrey Puma) are still commonly reported throughout Great Britain.
I should also point out that in 1980, a Scottish farmer, who had regularly reported seeing a strange beast on his property (and even claimed that it had killed some of his livestock), was able to trap an adult puma. The puma was domesticated and had obviously escaped (or been released) from captivity, but from where? Elsewhere, in Moray, three very large black cats (variations of the Scottish wildcat) were shot and killed in the 1980s. There is, however, also a folkloric precedent for the popularity of this beast, one that goes beyond the extra revenue brought in by tourism. Tales of large black animals go back for centuries in England. Old Shuck to give just one example from the many available, is a ghostly black dog that is said to terrify various counties in South-East England and is considered by some to be a cryptid in its own right. The Beast of Bodmin Moor also holds the (admittedly dubious) distinction of being one of my first professional writing assignments, where I adapted a few of the best-known tales into a horror screenplay for a production company that, thankfully, never produced it!