Shropshire man says he has seen big cats

Mr Evans is convinced that such animals are living wild in the county, having seen one for himself, not once, but twice.

Now retired, the 75-year-old has returned to the road near Oswestry where he says a big cat loped across in front of his car.

The area is close to where other sightings have been, one as recently as last year.

Mr Evans said: "I was fascinated by the Shropshire Star's photograph dated 1994 and taken in Llandrinio, showing a lynx-like creature resembling a domestic cat, but much larger.

"In about 2002 I had to slow my car on the Melverley/Maesbrook road on two occasions to avoid an identical animal as it emerged from the hedge and crossed the road ahead of me.

"On each occasion it was around 2.30am on a Sunday, after I had dropped a friend off in Melverley. The area is just a stone's throw from Llandrinio." Mr Evans said on both weekends he saw the animal at the same spot in the road, indicating that it was a creature of habit.

"On both occasions the animal emerged from the hedge ahead of me on a straight, giving me a good view of him as he hopped down from the verge in one graceful stride, and paused in the middle of the highway to look at my car," he said. "This confirming it was not a dog, because the eyes reflected green like those of a cat.

"In no particular hurry it then crossed the road and with equal grace slipped through the hedge. The creature was the size and colouring of a large black labrador, but completely the wrong shape – this was a cat of some kind."

He said he often wondered if such cats had found safe havens in the banks of rivers like the nearby Vyrnwy and Severn.

In March last year 43-year-old Wendy Lochridge saw a large cat disappear into bushes in fields near her home at Morton, a hamlet in between Llandrinio and Maesbrook.

She said that she believed the animal was a panther as it was too big to be a normal cat.

"What I saw was massive. It was over four-foot long and it had a long tail," she said.