The Black Panther of East Sussex
Think of your average visit to the South Downs: children running off into the woods to climb trees; Spaniels and Jack Russells roaming free off the lead, walkers marching along the hilltops, carefree and unassuming. It might be one of the most serene, risk-free activities available to a Brightonian, and only a short bus ride away. Sunny days at Devil’s Dyke; long walks along the Seven Sisters trail. As long as you stay away from the cliff edge, you really are at very little risk of encountering danger while enjoying the local nature of East Sussex.
Geographically, England is a very safe place - no risk of tsunamis, no earthquakes, no large dangerous creatures roaming the wilds that we must be braced to encounter should we wander off the beaten path. There are no great whites off the coast of Brighton, no grey wolves in Stanmer Park, no big, ferocious cats - mountain lions, pumas, panthers - roaming the woodland of the Downs - or at least according to most British Wildlife manuals there aren’t.
But in actuality the English countryside might not be quite as quaint as most of us would assume. In the following piece I am going to unpack the lore and legend of what, for convenience sake, I might just go ahead and dub ‘the British Panther’. If you have not yet withdrawn from this conversation already I encourage you to keep an open mind. Because while I will most heavily rely on anecdotes, local legend, and even my own - and friends’ - experiences, I will also draw on some more scientific evidence too. And more importantly: should, by the end, you remain disbelieving, I would then encourage you to appreciate and enjoy the legend for what it is, for what legends often are: a bit of fun. Ghosts, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster - no, we might never know for sure whether or not they exist, but it will always be exciting to wonder.
When I was about thirteen years old, I went to a horse riding stable in the countryside with my parents and sister. It was in Smallfield, Surrey: a quiet rural area of a London home county; not much to fear as one takes a stroll down a public footpath, over a hill and through the meadows. But as my dad drove us out of the farm and onto the country lane I saw, undeniably, an enormous, black, feline animal stalking through the wheat field on the opposite side of the road. Before there was time for a proper look, let alone a discussion with the rest of my family, the moment was over and we were driving off down the road. But I knew what I’d seen, as did my mum, who to this day is adamant that we saw what I still cannot quite believe: a fully grown black panther in the middle of England.
Despite it being well over a decade since the sighting, it has probably only been a handful of times I have actually mentioned it to anyone, pondered the implications, or even discussed it with my mum. I liken this dissociative sort of acceptance to something similar I’ve witnessed in people who claim wholeheartedly that they have seen a ghost, or a space ship: there is no argument to be had, they are not uncertain in their belief of what they saw: it happened, whether people laugh, mock or question or not, and there is no more to be said on the matter.
There have been times when I have told myself that what I surely must have seen was a dog, a very large dog, with the stealth and smoothness of movement of a cat - and the shoulder blades of one as is seen when they lower themselves to the ground in pursuit of prey. Or perhaps it was, in fact, a house cat. An unusually enormous house cat, likely over ten times the size of even a regularly large one. But now, as I have always known beneath the doubt, it was neither of these things. It was indeed a Big Cat, with a capital B: a puma, a leopard, a jaguar, some form of panther (for the term ‘panther’ colloquially describes any all-black - melanistic - form of jaguar or leopard).
A black panther, for reference. Source: getty images
Only recently did the memory resurface, out of the depths of my early adolescence, and this time it would not be replaced in its drawer, forgotten. I decided to bring it up to a friend after we finished work. “Oh yes, I’ve seen one too,” she said, without blinking, shrugging it off as if we were talking about the common red fox. To my increased wonder, she went on to tell me that she saw one from a train window as it went over a field on the way from Oxford to Worcester: a long, black feline animal at the edge of the treeline. Only a moment she said she saw it for, but quite enough of a look to know that what she saw was no ordinary animal of England. “It was a jaguar,” she said nonplussed. It made me wonder, how many of us have seen something we couldn’t explain? Are there big black cats out there roaming wild that, every now and then, are spotted by a disbelieving eye, but never mentioned again?
This is when the fixation took hold, and the widespreadness of the phenomenon really became apparent. If you go searching - ‘panther spotted in Surrey/ the Cotswolds/ East Sussex’ - you will find a surprising number of articles pop up from reputable sites. You will find forums and discussions where people are thrilled to find out they aren’t alone in their sightings. You will find countless videos on social media of people relaying their stories of enormous black cats spotted in counties all over the U.K. One of the most significant developments in the British Panther case I discovered was in 1983 when a farmer in South Molton claimed over one hundred of his sheep were killed over the course of three months, all found to have their throats torn open as if by some large carnivore. This event brought a large amount of infamy to what became known as 'The Beast of Exmoor' and saw a troop of Royal Marines deployed into the area to hunt it (to no avail).
Coming across such a huge amount of media on the topic, I decided, as a Brighton local, to investigate more specifically any tales of such sightings in East Sussex specifically.
One of the most exciting of the articles I found was one published in The Argus itself: telling the story from 2009 of the terror felt by a woman living on Loder Road, by Preston Park, who came face to face with such a creature. She let her dog into the garden at around 10pm when she noticed he was acting strangely.
“Then I turned my head to the side and about two metres away from me I saw this black animal…At first I thought it was a pit bull, but then I saw its big long tail…It was about the size of an Alsatian dog and had a square face.”
She then went on to say how she ran back inside the house, feeling more scared than she’d felt in all her life. This report as it happens also came only a few weeks after a report of one being spotted at Hollingbury Golf Course. Neil Arnold, who runs Kent Big Cat Research, affirmed her story confidently, claiming there were numerous big cats living in the area, that there have been plenty of reports of them around Brighton and the Downs, and that they likely spend most of their time in more rural areas, coming into towns and gardens when it gets dark, likely following the scents of foxes and house cats.
This, however, is only one of several articles published regarding Black Panthers in and around Brighton, and one of countless stories, conspiracies and rumours regarding such sightings as I have seen on social media platforms, discussion forums and even on a Facebook group called “Big Cat Sightings in Sussex.” The Beast of Bevendean, The Panther of Preston Park… this is not the case of one or two tricks of the light, or misinterpreted sightings of badgers or overgrown house cats. This is a phenomenon that runs deep, tracks back for decades, and covers likely every county in the UK.
So what, then, might be at least one convincing explanation of the presence of these alarming creatures in our towns? Well, there is actually one that might even convince the unbudging sceptic; not relying on the mystical or surreal (such as the ‘Puca’, a shapeshifting spirit of Celtic folklore), but something more grounded in reality and British historical fact. In the 1960s there was a fashion boom that saw exotic animals becoming house pets: Harrods would sell big cats, alligators, even baby elephants: that is the first fact. The second is that in 1976 the government implemented the Dangerous Wild Animals Act. This saw the widespread release of such animals into the wild (if the animal was lucky) so that the owner would avoid new ownership fees. This would have happened all over the country, illegally and secretly; but there was also the case of some offenders confessing to the crime and even the capture of a puma that had been released in the Scottish Highlands.
Though the legend of the British Panther dates back over 50 years, reports of them significantly spiked during the late 1970s and 1980s: another piece of the puzzle that further supports the idea of their presence being a result of the illegal release of them as pets. Whether or not enough jaguars, leopards and pumas were released to allow for a breeding population to develop is still uncertain, though far from unlikely, considering the frequency of sightings since 1976 up until the present day.
The final piece of evidence to mention is one of scientific discovery, most significantly the DNA swab taken from a sheep carcass in Cumbria as recently as 2024: a woman spotted a large black creature feasting on the body of a dead sheep before fleeing over a wall and sent off a swab to Professor Robin Allaby of the University of Warwick. What he confirmed was so shocking that the finding made its way into The Telegraph, BBC Wildlife Magazine, as well as BBC News: ‘panthera’ DNA, likely from a jaguar or leopard, was found on the carcass. But besides this, and the capture of the Puma in Scotland, there are many other findings scattered about here and there: tooth pit analysis finding marks on dead livestock bones to suggest a large carnivore’s presence, a puma skull found in Devon, and many more such stories, both of hearsay and of fact.
The Staffordshire Panther. Discovered in the files of a zoology organisation. Credit: Dragonfly Films SWNS
What are we left with, then - should we believe in the presence of the British Panther? It seems there is enough reason to accept them as a character amongst the rest of our known flora and fauna, but what must we do about this unusual addition to British Wildlife? I suppose nothing: afterall, it is stated by ‘Big Cat experts’ that jaguars, leopards and the like do not pose much of a threat to humans. What we are left with though is another reason to marvel at the mysteries of the countryside, as well as something else to keep a watchful eye out for next time we take to the Downs or wander the woodlands of Sussex (or even visit Preston Park after sundown).
What I will say though, finally, is that I consider these creatures, wherever they have come from, a welcome addition: though their presence has been a topic of conversation for well over half a century now, there is hardly any reason to assume they are a threat to our way of life, to the equilibrium of nature, or to the wellbeing of the people of Britain. And as such, I don’t mind suggesting that, if they really are still out there, they are welcome to stay.
References:
Staffordshire Panther: The Guardian
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