For many years there have been stories about a large wild cat roaming the isolated moors in the centre of Cornwall and while most people have come to regard the Beast of Bodmin Moor as something of a joke, what if some of those sightings were actually real? I began looking into this story by chance and as someone who had always been very sceptical of what I thought had become an overly commercialised, modern day myth I was actually very surprised by what I learnt.

The First Attack

The incident that really brought nationwide attention to what was happening on Bodmin Moor occurred in October 1993.

On Tuesday 26th October Jane Fuller, then 37 years old, was taking her dog for a late night walk on the moor near her home in Cardinham when she was struck from behind. The blow stunned her and knocked her to the ground. She told police that she believed that she had momentarily lost consciousness but when she came round her dog was standing close to her growling and barking at something in the gloom. Looking around Jane claimed she saw “a very large, dark coloured cat-like creature” watching her from a short distance away. It had a very long tail “three to four feet in length and curled upwards” and it was making “grunting noises”.

Devon and Cornwall Police told the press that Jane was suffering from “severe shock” and that they were examining the scene of the incident for evidence.

The story quickly made the front pages of the national newspapers across the country as the media tapped into the public’s fears that there were wild animals roaming the countryside. And within days the ‘Beast of Bodmin’ moniker was being used in print and on radio and TV programmes. And a legend had been born.

In the days that followed the local police were said to be examining a large footprint and some strands of hair found at the scene and had apparently contacted Newquay Zoo to ascertain whether they were missing any animals. It was also claimed that the same animal was suspected of attacking sheep on the moor.

Behind the Headlines

Although it was the first attack on a human that finally brought the story to the attention of the press it quickly became clear that farmers on Bodmin Moor had been complaining about attacks on their animals for years before this. In fact, stories of animals being killed dated back at least a decade to around 1983.

And a real hotspot for the sightings of the creature was the area of Bodmin Moor known as East Moor. Both Rosemary Rhodes of Ninestones Farm and John Goodenough of Goodaver Farm had been losing livestock and both of them were convinced that there was some kind of wild cat that was preying on their animals. They had both seen it, as had John’s son Richard.

Rosemary told the papers that she has spotted “the beast” many times on her land and she eventually sold her flock of sheep after at least 10 animals were killed.

Rosemary had also taken audio recordings of strange screeching noises that had been heard on the moor at night and she is quoted as saying that these had been identified as a “puma mating call”.

The Bait

The police were quite cleatly baffled and called in wildlife experts to try and determine what they were dealing with. PC Peter Keen from the Bodmin force seems to have been heavily involved in the investigation and one paper even claimed that he had actually seen the furry culprit with his own eyes. In any event it does appear that the officers were taking the reports very seriously.

The national newspapers were desperate for picture of the Beast that was creating so much interest, and bound to sell more papers for them, as a consequence some were offering thousands of pounds for an image. It appears that one of the papers even hatched a plan to catch, or at least lure out into plain sight what they now believed to be a male puma.

Sometime in November 1993 a female puma named Promise was brought up to the moor. We are told that the secret location was somewhere near to Jamaica Inn, so probably on East Moor, and she was left out there for several days in a 12ft by 8ft cage in an attempt to lure the beast out.

Promise’s handler, Marc Chandler of Dartmoor Wildlife Park, told the papers that he hoped that the beast would come out to investigate her and he is quoted as saying that he was 100% sure that the animal was a puma.

What actually came of this plan isn’t clear, presumably nothing showed, but soon after Constable Keen was quoted in the papers as saying that “anyone trespassing on the moor with a gun hoping to shoot animals would be committing a serious offence.” This implies that there were those willing to take the law into their own hands and go out hunting for the beast themselves.

Then in December 1993 Rosemary Rhodes, who farmed at Ninestones Farm on East Moor, caught what she believed was the Beast of Bodmin Moor on camera. Again wildlife experts were brought in to view the images and are said to have concluded that it was indeed a big cat. This footage later appeared on various news programmes and in the documentary aired in 1994.

(WARNING: this video contains disturbing images of dead and injured animals)

The footage may have been blurry but many people were convinced that it was conclusive evidence of a big cat. The sightings continued over the following months and crucially farmers on the moor continued to report attacks on their livestock.

John Goodenough at Goodaver Farm, just below Goodaver stone circle, was interviewed several times by the TV, radio and newspapers about the Beast of Bodmin. He became an outspoken critic of the authorities who he felt weren’t taking the situation seriously enough. He had lost about £1000 worth of stock to animal attacks and was very concerned that someone, a child perhaps, would eventually be seriously hurt.

His sinister warning to the public was printed in the paper:

“You’ll know when the Beast’s there. There’ll be no rabbits or foxes about and the birds stop singing. That’s the call for caution. And the way they kill. If it’s a dog there’s wool and trouble everywhere. A cat goes in, kills and eats. Very little mess.”

With this in mind John decided to put up a sign on one of his farm gates warning the public of ‘Wild Big Cats’ in the area.

It was not just the farmers who were convinced that something was very wrong on the moors.

The landlord of the Rising Sun pub in St Clether, Les Humphreys, knew several customers who said they had seen the cat, while Father Michael Cartwright, the priest in charge of Altarnun church, also believed what his parishioners were telling him. He told the Independent newspaper:

“Some reliable people who have seen it are not the sort who go into the realms of fantasy. People round here aren’t given to lying.”

Another witness was a local builder, Steve Parkyn, who saw the cat while driving with a friend late at night near Priddacombe Farm, to the north of Altarnun and East Moor. According to Parkyn they got a good look at the animal as it stood on a hedge in front of them and then watched it disappear into woodland. The men decided to follow and caught a glimpse of it again in their torchlight. They described it as “about 3ft long, with a tail of 18 inches and was a pinky brown colour.”

The Ministry Man

It seems that the continuing press coverage convinced the government that they had to be shown to be acting in order to placate the growing fears of the public, so in 1995 the Agricultural Development Advisory Service sent a wildlife biologist called Charlie Wilson to Bodmin Moor to investigate. He was given £8,200 and 26 days to find evidence of the Beast of Bodmin Moor.

But it seems that from the get go local people weren’t entirely convinced that Wilson was impartial or that he had been given the time or tools necessary for the hunt, so no one was surprised when his report concluded that there was no evidence that there were big cats on Bodmin Moor.

Angela Browning, a junior agriculture minister, who bizarrely came to the press conference in London wearing a large cat shaped brooch, announced that the investigation had found no evidence for big cats and that all the footage and photographs actually showed ordinary domestic cats. The footprints were also dismissed as evidence an said to belong to regular dogs and cats. She claimed that the livestock deaths gave no “hint of big cat involvement” but offered no clear explanation as to what had been killing the animals.

The findings were not well received.

Rosemary Rhodes told the papers that:

“Everyone in the country will think we have been suffering from a mass hallucination but one day there is an outside chance someone is going to get hurt.”

The North Cornwall Liberal Democrat MP Paul Tyler also spoke to the papers and emphasised the general belief that “the ministry think that they have dispelled the mystery” but that it was very unlikely to just go away. He said he had met many people who had seen something on the moors or were convinced that there was something behind the stories. His prediction was correct.

The sightings of the Beast continued.

Final Thoughts

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s there were an estimated sixty recorded Big Cat sightings on Bodmin Moor. Over the years the cat has been various identified as a lynx, a leopard, a puma and a panther.

A number of theories about where the cat (or cats) on the moor might have come from have also circulated. One idea is that a woman called Mary Chipperfield, who ran a circus and a private zoo near Plymouth in the 1970s, may have released some of her animals. It is worth noting that Chipperfield was allegedly convicted of cruelty to her animals more than once, so the irresponsible behaviour of letting some go free, perhaps to get them off her hands, does not seem entirely unthinkable.

Another theory was the Dartmouth Zoo had allowed a pack of pumas to escape but this has never been substantiated in any way.

One thing is clear however, these big cat sightings (particularly the early ones) have never been properly explained and the Beast of Bodmin has continued to pop up in the news again and again and again over the years. This is not a story that is ever going to go away. It has already become a modern day myth. But as someone who was pretty sceptical about the whole thing revisiting the story through the newspaper articles of the time and hearing the words of the witnesses has certainly been interesting and very eye-opening.

And one thought keeps playing on my mind . . .

I think that it is fair to say that no one on Bodmin Moor, certainly not the farmers, would have wanted to attract the press attention and public curiosity that they did. They would not have invited the media circus to town without very good reason. Whatever was out there, Beast of Bodmin Moor or not, they believed it. And while it is unlikely that any beast would still be alive today, I feel certain that back in the 1990s something was going on, these stoic, no-nonsense moorland folk definitely saw something they couldn’t explain.

Further Reading

Hunting for Cornish Sea Monsters – the Legend of the Morgawr

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