Big cat enthusiasts claim they have ‘proof’ predator is roaming in the UK

Big cat enthusiasts reckon they now have cast iron proof that a predator is roaming free in the UK.

Andy Rule, 53, and wife Claire, 50, claim to have photographic evidence of a feline predator living in the Cotswolds.

The pair, who have spent more than a decade tracking big cats, set up trail cameras in woodland near Nympsfield, Gloucestershire, years ago in the hope of capturing images of the beast.

READ MORE: Stunned driver spots 'muscular big black cat' at traffic lights in UK town

And their work has now paid off with images of the elusive animal that an army of dedicated big cat believers think prowl in rural areas across the country.

Police say they’ve received reports of people who say they have seen lions, pumas, leopards and even cheetahs.

Andy, a former carer from Stroud, said: "We've had three cameras over half a mile that have picked up glimpses, in that area.

"What I believe [the cat] doing is sniffing the ground. Between the first image of the tail and the side profile there was 53 seconds.

"If it had been a video, it would have caught it moving more fluently.

"I believe this cat we've seen now seems to be showing quite a bit of grey so I think it's a bit older.

"Most of the images we've caught are pure luck because the cats are scooting around the edges of them."

Andy and Claire took an interest in the 'big cat' phenomenon back in 2012 after the intriguing death of two deer.

He said: "Claire's always been interested in it, since growing up. But she asked me to take her to a spot of where the deer carcasses were found in 2012.

"We would spend our time off from caring for our son trying to get sightings of the black cat.

"We've been catching odd images all the way through. 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019 were really good years.

"But in 2020, when I lost my leg, we weren't able to do much with it.

"Once we got the care for our son, we were spending 55 hours a week in the field walking to all the cameras and checking regular routes for any sightings.

"Each six weeks or so you'd go to a different set of cameras and then spend weeks looking through thousands of pictures."

A black hair found on a barbed wire fence recently gave DNA evidencethat big cats are roaming the countryside.

The hair was left after a sheep attack on a farm in Gloucestershire, just a few miles from where a large black animal was caught on video.

Mitochondrial DNA analysis found the hair to be a 99% match to a big cat species.

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