Panther & Puma on Sheffield Moors?

[Guest tsavo]

1973 Panther and puma released by former lion tamer at Snakes Pass in Derbyshire.

A former lion tamer has admitted he released a panther and a cougar into the countryside near Sheffield in the 1970s. Leslie Maiden, who once owned more than a dozen big cats, said he released the animals off the A57 Snake Pass in Derbyshire. He also said people in Sheffield had released big cats on the moors.

"I released a panther 26 years ago on to the moors on the Pennines at Snake Pass," Mr Maiden, of Cradley Heath, near Dudley, West Midlands, told a BBC regional news programme. "It was miles from anywhere. It was a couple of days after releasing a cougar," he said.

Mr Maiden, 63, known locally as "One-eyed Nick", added: "I’ve always been an animal lover. But people came to me with the animals saying they would have to put them down. I had no option.

1974 Lewis Foley, 61, who kept animals at a menagerie with Mr Maiden, disclosed that a friend of his in Coventry had set a panther loose in Nottinghamshire in 1974. Mr Foley said: "He knew about the new laws and didn’t want it put down." Friends in Sheffield also set big cats loose on the Pennines, he added.

:o

[Sheffield History]

No wonder there's been all the sightings !

Thing is - they would have nothing to mate with so should have died off by now

But what a crazy thing to do

[Guest tsavo]

Yes, about 12 to 15 years in captivity, but watch out if you see some fast moving sheep with big teeth!!!