It's been a ten year quest and a couple are now celebrating after claiming to have proof of a predator in the Westcountry. The images were taken in the Cotswolds on a trail camera by Andy Rule, 53, and his wife Claire, 50.
They set up trail cameras in woodland near Nympsfield in Gloucestershire years ago in the hope of snapping a beast. And their work has now paid off, they say - as their cameras picked up images of a cat in the wild.
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.
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"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."
Andy and Claire are not the only ones who believe the pictures show a sighting of the mystical 'big cat' in Stanley Woods.
Andy said: "I've shown a couple of people the images and they think it's a cat too. One of them has said is it maybe an older cat passing back through."
The couples' pictures follow reports that DNA from a black hair caught on a barbwire fence following a sheep attack has offered 'definitive proof' big cats are roaming the British countryside. The strands were sent off for testing after being recovered from a farm in Gloucestershire where there had been some "unusual predatory" activity.
Suspicion was raised when video footage of a large black animal was also captured only a few miles away from where the sample was taken. And documentary-makers, who had been investigating sightings across the UK, say the test has now come back 'positive' and confirmed the existence of black panthers and other big cats living in the UK.
A forensic laboratory took on the species identification task and used mitochondrial DNA analysis to ascertain a 99 per cent match to a big cat species. The findings have come to light as part of filming for an upcoming documentary - Panthera Britannia Declassified - which investigates claims of big cat sightings in Britain.
Matthew Everett, from Dragonfly Films, said: "The DNA was from hairs caught on a barbwire fence where there had been some unusual predatory activity. It’s taken five years for the production team to find such evidence and film its journey from collection to analysis.
"People in Gloucestershire and Britain have described what appear to be black leopards for decades. So, a leopard DNA result from a black hair sample is unsurprising. This is not the first such DNA result and is unlikely to be the last."
