Scottish Big Cats Investigations.

They’re kind of like CSI Miami, but more Scottish, and more concerned with oversized cat than corpses. Unless the corpses have been caused by oversized cats. They’re the Scottish Big Cat Investigation and they’re on the trail of a big cat in Dundee:

An organisation which investigates sightings of big cats is coming to the Dundee area next month to try to track down a 6ft-long black “leopard-type” cat. Sandy Smith, of Scottish Big Cat Investigation, has so far spoken to four people in Dundee, Carnoustie and Monifieth about sightings of the large animal.

Now sorry for sounding cynical, but as soon as I read that I thought: organisation…? Scottish Big Cat Investigation? I wonder if that’s just Sandy Smith in an old Vauxhall Astra, clutching a clipboard with the words Scottish Big Cat Investigation drawn on in Tipp-Ex. Here’s a clue:

This is the first time that the group, formed by Sandy earlier this year, has been to Dundee. Sandy, who has seen four big cats in residential areas, says the big cats are no urban legend, but very real. He said, “A lot of people think that big cats don’t exist – but they are no Loch Ness Monster. I personally have seen a big cat on four separate occasions. “My son thought I was ready for a straight jacket when I first started investigating them. But then I took him out one night and we were lucky enough to spot one.

(Over there! Look! There! Did you see him? Over by the bins? I think it was a mountain lion…) Sandy is full of handy big cat facts. After all, he’s had first hand experience of Scottish leopard-like creatures:

“Big cats are not usually dangerous — they can survive on just two rabbits a day and are more scared of us than we were of them,” he said. “The only time they can become dangerous is if they are backed into a corner. “Then it’s important that you don’t look them in the eye.” When a big cat is spotted, the group don’t try to catch the animal, but attempt to photograph it.

The group?

“We’re not hunters. The buzz is in seeing a big cat. We do not try to catch them or harm them in any way.”

We? Who’s we…? It’s Sandy and his kid. (I actually think it’s rather sweet. It’s probably quite exciting for the child to go hunting leopards with his Dad. It’s like he’s ‘fun’ mad. Not nasty mad). Or maybe he’s onto something. Maybe Sandy is the only one that knows the truth about our Scottish big cat population. With that possibility in mind, he’s how to contact him if you see a tiger print in your vegetable patch:

People who have sighted a big cat are asked to contact Scottish Big Cat Investigation on 01505 872482.

Wed 3 Aug 2005

Man with big cats preying on his mind

JULIA HORTON

THE FIELD is bathed in early evening sunshine - stalks of golden barley standing like sentinels, unmoving in the still air.

In the distance, a wood pigeon calls softly over the faint hum of traffic heading in and out of Edinburgh. A perfect example of a Scottish rural idyll. But all is not as it seems.

For this is the haunt of the Beast of Roslin - a "puma-like" big cat reputed to roam the area.

There are now around 2000 reports of big-cat sightings in the UK a year - cynics say those with over-active imaginations are merely mistaking big domestic moggies in the twilight. Others claim the cats could be zoo escapees or dumped exotic pets surviving in the wild.

Whatever the truth, the area around Roslin - better known for Holy Grail tales - is now a hotspot for big cat sightings, with the latest report just last month.

And anyone glancing over the hedge into the field outside Roslin would be able to see an ominous dark shape.

It is exactly the same size as a leopard or a lynx, jet black like a panther, standing stock-still - as if about to pounce.

But, as with so many "dead cert" sightings of big, black cats across the country, appearances can be deceptive.

On closer inspection, this creature looks a little stiff - wooden you might say - and a bit two dimensional. It also has a hinge screwed into its middle.

Suddenly a roaring sound fills the air. But while a little alarming, it is not exactly ear-shattering. It comes from the jaws of Sandy Smith, a Scottish big cat researcher who minutes earlier carried this life-size cut-out leopard folded in two, into the field.

This is no hoax, however. The cut-out is just the latest bit of kit which Sandy has created, Blue Peter-style, to help him work out whether reported sightings are genuine or not.

The idea is to place the plywood model where the big cat was seen and then photograph it from where the spotter saw it. That helps Sandy gauge the size of the beast that was spotted. It makes sense, in a funny kind of a way.

But the reality of putting the idea into practice produces an increasingly surreal scene played out by two grown men and a wooden cat. Sandy's "accomplice" for the day is bus driver and wildlife enthusiast Alistair Ross, 54 - the man who believes he spotted the beast in the field. Alistair sticks a stake in the ground roughly where he thinks he saw the beast.

He then tramps back through the barley to the road and stands behind the hedge where he took his photograph after rushing out of his house that evening a few weeks ago in July.

"Left a bit," he shouts over to Sandy, also 54, who moves the cut-out cat slightly.

The roar which Sandy lets rip part-way through proceedings is his slightly unexpected response to being asked what he would do if he came face to face with a big cat.

"The thing to do is not to look it in the eye and to try and make yourself look as large as possible," he says.

Luckily the chances of being attacked by a big cat are small, Sandy says, because they are unlikely to lash out unless cornered.

Sceptics maintain the likelihood of being mauled by a leopard in the Scottish countryside is zero because the beasts allegedly prowling the land are all about as real as Sandy's cut-out cat.

Not so long ago, Sandy, who runs a landscape gardening business in the west of Scotland, would have agreed with them. But a chance sighting led him to join the Scottish Big Cat Society as a researcher seven months ago.

And although he admits around 90 per cent of reported sightings turn out to be false, his work around the country since then has convinced him that the beasts really are out there.

"I remember last October a woman in Kilmacolm where I live saying she had seen a big, black cat in the back garden which she was convinced was a leopard. I just thought it must have been a moggy.

"But then on Christmas Eve when I was driving back from a job I suddenly saw a black cat by a silver birch and I knew it was a leopard or another big cat like that.

"I was hyper. I didn't know what to do. But I knew what I had seen. Until then I knew nothing about big cats. I thought they would eat you.

"But I have learned so much since I joined the big cat society. Some people still think that they will eat you, but let's be adult about it," he says, which sounds an odd thing for a man who has just spent the past half hour moving a cut-out cat around a field to say.

Sandy is used to being ridiculed. His wife and son both thought he was "bonkers" when he first started, although they take him seriously now.

Sandy happily admits this is a hobby, and he is no world expert on cats. After growing up in the country, he is skilled in reading animal tracks, however. Meanwhile, his growing knowledge of big cats is gained from talking to other members of the big cat society, reading books and watching television programmes.

His enthusiasm for his new hobby has led him to try all sorts of methods to try to attract his quarry, including catnip - "didn't work".

He has also tried playing a tape recording of a distressed rabbit in a bid to lure a leopard or similar.

The haunting cries of the rabbit sound like a woman screaming. Like the catnip they failed to attract big cats.

He has also made up his own tape, called What the hell was that noise? featuring the natural calls of a range of animals from deer coughs and fox yells to puma roars.

Animal noise recognition can be tricky, he says, explaining that he was once 100 per cent certain he had seen and heard a leopard.

Such was his excitement that he called his wife on his mobile and left a message, which left him with a recording of the call.

More experienced researchers at the society said they thought it was a bird of prey and a bird expert said: "No mate, it's a buzzard".

Sandy grins good-naturedly, remembering, but you can tell he's still hoping he was right. "For me it's about the adrenalin, the buzz of seeing these cats," he says.

Because it has been so dry, the ground is full of cracks, which makes any attempt to find footprints to make casts from pretty futile.

As the sun sets and we enter prime hunting time for big cats, Sandy sets up his makeshift hide at one side of the barley field.

Up goes a dark green fishing umbrella, which he covers with camouflage netting. For full investigations he will stay up all night watching and waiting.

It all looks and sounds very hardcore, until he produces a camping chair. "I like my comforts," he says.

Delving into his rucksack once more, Sandy produces a night-vision telescope and a night vision video camera bought on eBay which he sets up on a tripod within the hide.

In the fading light nothing moves. But everything suddenly starts to look as though it just might be a puma, or a leopard.

Staring intently across the field with his binoculars Sandy begins to think maybe he's spotted something, before realising he is looking at a fence post.

The roar of a motorbike nearby makes us both jump, and we look round half expecting to see a tiger standing behind us.

Tonight Sandy decides it is not worth staying out until dawn, partly because the barley is so high it is hard to see anything moving through it, partly because it is a very cloudy night - the night-vision equipment works best with a full moon - and partly because he has not had time to set up his hide in the best location and leave it so that any creatures can get used to its presence.

"Any big cat will see us long before we see it and run," he says. "Ideally, I would set up in a wooded area, where you are more likely to find a cat and leave the hide there for a few days so it accepts it as part of the environment."

The best evidence comes from good, clear photographs or video footage, which Sandy would try to obtain using a trigger camera - set off by movement like home security lighting.

As the night's investigations end with no firm evidence to prove the Beast of Roslin is out there, there is no doubt that Sandy himself will be lurking in the shadows again soon. You have been warned . . .

 

The Dundee Courier.

27th April 2006.

"100% Sure’ of Sidlaw Hills Big Cat
By Graeme Strachan
A BIG cat investigator last night said he was virtually convinced that a six-foot, black “leopard-type” animal is loose to the north of Dundee. Sandy Smith, of Scottish Big Cat Investigation, is keen to speak to people in the Dundee area who have spotted the cat, to build up a profile of where it might be.
The organisation will be holding a vigil in the Sidlaw Hills next month to track down the cat, said to be two feet tall, with a body length of three feet and a tail also measuring three feet. Mr Smith spoke to four people in Dundee, Carnoustie and Monifieth about sightings over the weekend of April 12-14.
“We’ve had a few reports of the big cat being spotted in the Sidlaw Hills,” he said. “I’m virtually convinced it’s there. “It was released by a Dundee woman who rescued it in the 1970s. “She didn’t realise it was a leopard until it began to grow rapidly. As it got bigger it actually attacked her husband and was given to a farm.
“The leopard would kill pheasants, rabbits, rats but, when it started bringing down lambs, the farmer took a shot at it and it took off into the Sidlaw Hills. “The woman’s convinced those sightings are of that leopard, or its offspring. ”
While in Dundee taking statements of sightings, the group set up an all-night vigil in Camperdown Park where there had been a few recent sightings but had no luck in finding the cat. Now Mr Smith wants to build up a profile of where it might be and will be following up reports over the weekend of May 19-21. Sandy, who has seen four big cats in residential areas, says the big cats are no urban legend but very real.
Usually it takes weeks to try to spot a cat and a couple of years to build up a picture of its territory, which is usually about a 30-mile radius. Sandy said the animal is unlikely to be dangerous.
“We’ve received 60 or 70 sightings from people in Dundee,” said Sandy. “We’re 100% sure there’s something out there.” There are more than 120 big cat sightings in Scotland every year.
A report released this week by the British Big Cats Society revealed more than 2100 sightings of pumas, panthers, lynxes and other cats in Britain last year, with 125 of those claimed to be in Scotland.