7:30am Thursday 21st January 2010
By Joanna Davis
A STRATTON resident was left shaken when he spotted what he thought was a big cat running across the road.
Julian Foster said he ‘jumped out of his skin’ when he saw the animal run into a hedge close to Poundbury.
The 51-year-old said he saw the back end of a ‘very large, jet black cat that was like a panther’ at dusk last month.
He said: “It scared me when I realised what it was.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“Its body was very long and it had a really long tail that I noticed as it was going into the hedge.”
Former delivery driver Mr Foster was on his way to see his mum in Bradford Peverell and said he was in Tilly Whim Lane, near to the Friary Press in Bridport Road when he saw the creature.
“It wasn’t very far from the houses. It seemed to go off in the direction of some woods.”
Meanwhile, Bockhampton resident Jackie Henville thinks she had an encounter with the ‘beast’ when she was out walking her dogs recently.
She put her dog Lily on the lead after she saw what appeared to be a big cat while walking through the forest in Puddletown near Hardy’s Cottage. She said: “It gave me a funny feeling. The cat was less than 150 yards away, very dark in colour. It was about the same size as a large dog but wasn’t moving like a dog.
“It was slinking along, almost hugging the ground.”
Jackie said she saw a deer carcass up a tree in the same area around three years ago.
“I spoke about it to my brother about it who lives in Africa. He said that was how big cats eat their prey.”
And RSPCA shop worker Judy Paterson thinks that a big cat attacked and killed a deer after she came across a carcass while walking her dog at Conygar Hill near Dorchester.
Judy, of Dorchester, said: “We were walking down a track when my dog Jez started to behave strangely.
“We could see a fairly young deer on the ground with its throat missing.
“It had obviously happened quite recently.”
Dorset Echo - http://networkedblogs.com/p25345280
(Submitted by Mark North)
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