A walker has described the scary moment he was stalked by a puma while enjoying a hike in the English countryside. Jonathan was walking in Dorset when he noticed he was being followed by an animal.
After moving a few paces along, he spotted the creature moving with 'intent'. He then realised it was a 'big cat' who was watching him.
He told the Big Cat Conversations podcast: "Every time I moved a few metres along this track, there was also a movement ahead of me that was almost mirror imagining my movement.
"And then I realised that there must have been an animal in front of me that was keeping its distance. My first thought was there's a fox that's hanging around watching me.
"I wasn't until two or three times later that I saw this twitching in the grass. I actually thought well I'm going to check this animal out and then I saw fur then I saw ears, then I saw a tail swish.
"It sort of flicked over its back and back down again. I thought 'oh my goodness me', and at that moment I realised what it was, I realised it was a cat and I realised it was a puma and I realised that it had intent.
"There was a reason why it was hanging around just a few metres in front of me."
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He told the Big Cat Conversations podcast that the following day he went out at the crack of dawn to the same location, according to BristolLive.
"I sat and I waited, there's not a single sighting of anything. Apart from a herd of Sika deer about 300 yards away," he said.
"I realised that one of the deer was sat away from the herd, it wasn't until the animal ran out from a bush that I realise this animal wasn't another deer, this animal was a puma.
"It was a puma cub, dashing out of the bush really fast and ran towards an animal lying down in the heather. It immediately leapt upright from its lying down position in one go and leapt into the air.
"The other animal leapt underneath it and they both ran together."
Farmers, dog walkers and train conductors have all retold their accounts of the moment they claim to have spotted a big cat roaming the West Country.
Some have seen the strange creature on more than one occasion, others have described the blood-curdling moment they were stalked by what they believe was a panther.
Recent DNA from a black hair sample, snagged on a fence at a Gloucestershire farm, was found to have 99 per cent chance it was a black leopard.
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