\n He described the moment as \u201cquite scary\u201d and something he \u201cwould never have believed\u201d had he not seen it himself.\n<\/p>\n
\n Peter Harding, from Penyffordd, Flintshire, said the encounter happened at around 9.45am on Tuesday, January 20, as he was driving back from Penley towards Bangor-on-Dee on the A525.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI saw this absolutely ginormous black cat run across the road in front of me,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything like it before, ever. It was definitely, 100 per cent, a cat.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Peter said the animal was around 15 to 50 feet away, had a long, muscular body, thick legs, and a large, heavy tail.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt was completely jet black, there wasn\u2019t any colour on it at all,\u201d he said. \u201cIt almost looked unreal. The first thing I thought was, \u2018What on earth is that?\u2019 It didn\u2019t look like it was meant to be there.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n He said the animal ran quickly across the road before disappearing up an embankment and into nearby woodland.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI slowed the car to try and see where it went, but it vanished,\u201d he said. \u201cI was in a bit of shock, really. I couldn\u2019t quite believe what I was seeing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n After returning home, Peter said he researched large cat sightings and was surprised to discover reports of similar encounters all over North Wales.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI honestly wouldn\u2019t have believed it if someone else had told me,\u201d he said. \u201cBefore this, I\u2019d probably have thought they were mistaken, maybe a dog or something. But after seeing it myself, I\u2019m completely convinced.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Peter later shared his experience on a Bangor-on-Dee community Facebook page, where three other people reported seeing something similar, including a sighting in Ellesmere days later.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt must be the same animal,\u201d he said. \u201cEllesmere and Bangor-on-Dee aren\u2019t far apart. I can\u2019t imagine there\u2019s more than one.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Peter said he had no reason to exaggerate what he saw: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t make something like this up. This was real, I\u2019m still a bit in shock now.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n While he said the experience left him feeling \u201cprivileged\u201d to witness something so rare, he also expressed concern for public safety.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIf I\u2019d been walking my dog and saw that, I\u2019d have been petrified,\u201d he said. \u201cYou worry about dog walkers and livestock. I think people need to be made aware so they can be cautious.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Peter has since reported the sighting to the online big-cat monitoring group Puma Watch North Wales and said he is considering contacting police to log the incident.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThere must be footprints where it went,\u201d he added. \u201cI know exactly where it ran into the woods.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n There is no confirmed evidence of wild pumas living in North Wales, but reports of so-called \u201cbig cat\u201d sightings surface from time to time across the UK.\n<\/p>\n
\n Peter added: \u201cIt sounds mad, I know but I know what I saw. I\u2019d never have believed it unless I\u2019d seen it with my own eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He described the moment as \u201cquite scary\u201d and something he \u201cwould never have believed\u201d had he not seen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":["post-394034","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\/394034","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=394034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}