\n Tony Reeves was walking his dog along footpath and cycle path 403 in Chippenham, which leads from Riverside Drive in Monkton Park along the side of the River Avon, shortly before 8.30am on Friday, January 2.\n<\/p>\n
\n He claims he saw a \u201cvery large cat-like animal\u201d cross from the river into the wooded area on the other side of the footpath, between 30 and 40 yards ahead of him.\n<\/p>\n
\n Tony described what he saw as a \u201cslinky\u201d animal that was dark brown or beige coloured, much larger than a domestic cat or dog.\n<\/p>\n
\n After researching big cats online, Tony believes what he saw most resembles a puma, but the truth remains a mystery.\n<\/p>\n
\n Suggested reading\n<\/p>\n
\n He said: \u201cIt\u2019s not something you\u2019d expect to see on a walk, I saw it clearly and I hadn\u2019t had a drink the night before.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt seemed to move slinky like a cat, not like a dog, and it was too big to be a domestic cat.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe colour looks like a puma, but this animal seemed to be flabbier than a puma, I don\u2019t know what it is or if it is dangerous.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI had never encountered anything like this before or even thought about it (the existence of big cats in the UK) so this was a surprise.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Tony has since returned to the footpath but has not spotted the creature again.\n<\/p>\n
\n He remains concerned about the safety of people and pets in the area.\n<\/p>\n
\n He added: \u201cIt\u2019s not put me off going back along the footpath but I\u2019m keeping my dog on a lead because I wouldn\u2019t want her to wander off and encounter it.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIf a young child wandered off the path and ran into it I\u2019d be concerned.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n This is not the first time Chippenham residents have reported seeing \u201cbig cats\u201d in the area.\n<\/p>\n
\n Last February, multiple residents reported seeing a \u201clarge black creature\u201d near the A350 bypass south of Chippenham, which some described as a \u201cvery large black cat.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n These sightings came after experienced big cat expert Rick Minter told the BBC he received \u201ccredible\u201d reports of a big cat near Melksham.\n<\/p>\n
\n At the time, he said he believed this animal could have been a black leopard indigenous to the Malay Peninsula.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tony Reeves was walking his dog along footpath and cycle path 403 in Chippenham, which leads from Riverside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-355107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355107","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=355107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}