\n The rather large grey cat was spotted outside the home of Nicola Grimshaw, who lives in Newton, near Highclere, on Thursday, November 6.\n<\/p>\n
\n Nicola said that she believes the “unusual” looking cat could in fact be a lynx.\n<\/p>\n
\n She took a photo from distance but was unable to capture a video.\n<\/p>\n
\n Nicola said: “I was in my bedroom getting ready and doing my hair, I glanced out of the window to my left and saw this large Cat walking across the driveway of the house behind us.\n<\/p>\n
\n The ‘lynx’ was spotted in Newtown (Image: Nicola Grimshaw)\n<\/p>\n
\n “It was grey. It definitely didn\u2019t look like a normal cat, it looked like it had pointed ears.\n<\/p>\n
\n “My first thought was ‘oh my goodness’, if our British blue runs into that huge cat, he could be killed.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I just had the sense that it wasn\u2019t a normal Cat because it seemed so much larger and different in shape, it was definitely the size of a large fox or even a small wolf.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Lynxes are medium-sized wild cats with a distinctive appearance that includes tufted ears, a ruff of fur around the face, and a short, black-tipped tail.\n<\/p>\n
\n There are four species of lynx – the Eurasian, Iberian, Canadian, and Bobcat. These are found in the forests of North America, Europe, and Asia.\n<\/p>\n
\n Solitary hunters, lynxes are known for their stealth and are effective predators of animals like deer, rabbits, and hares.\n<\/p>\n
\n Nicola continued: “My husband wasn\u2019t here so I couldn\u2019t shout down to him.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It made me feel uneasy, which is why I took the photo. It sat on the driveway for a few minutes, which is when I took the photograph. Frustratingly, I didn\u2019t video it moving off because it moved off quite quickly.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Lynxes are currently extinct in Great Britain, although the date of their extinction is not known for sure.\n<\/p>\n
\n The youngest physical remains of a Lynx was found in Kinsey Cave in Craven, and was carbon-dated to between 150 AD and 600 AD.\n<\/p>\n
\n The largest predator in the UK today is the badger, but in recent decades, campaigns have been calling for the reintroduction of the lynx to help improve biodiversity.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, political opposition and concerns over how this may impact livestock have stalled these plans for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rather large grey cat was spotted outside the home of Nicola Grimshaw, who lives in Newton, near…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-253271","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}