More entries in big cat diary...

SPECULATION that a big black panther-like animal is roaming the South Somerset countryside has continued in the past week, with more people coming forward to claim they have spotted the creature.

Yeovil woman Wendy Pollard was pleased to see The Express last week in which we ran a story about sightings and evidence of a wild cat roaming the district.

Wendy told The Express that she had seen a large panther/puma cat sitting at the bottom of her garden in early April of this year.

She said: "We told a few friends and work colleagues about it, but both my husband and I have had our legs pulled to this day about the panther being in our garden.

"We were not taken seriously by 99 per cent of people we know, but we know what we saw so I was really glad to see the story in the paper last week."

Wendy explained: "It was just after 7pm when my husband said to me to go and get the camera and pointed - standing on the tall stump of a tree at the bottom of the garden was a very large, black cat. It resembled a puma/panther with an arched back and tail hanging down.

"It was all a bit surreal. I ran to get the camera but, of course, it must have heard me and jumped down from the tree and disappeared.

"My husband went to see if it was still around, but it had gone - I don't quite know what he would have done had he found it!"

And Wendy added: "We have never seen it again but I am always aware when I am gardening that it once stood up on that tree. It would probably me more frightened of me than me of it, but I'm not taking any chances!"

It was a few weeks ago that The Express' sister paper, The Chard and Ilminster News, first suggested a big cat was lurking in the area after Hinton St George man Dave Pitman said he had found in woods near his home a fresh carcass of a deer where the animal had been so badly mauled it must have been the work of a wild cat.

Since then we have received numerous calls, letters and emails from people across South Somerset who have said they have seen the panther or come across deer killed in a similar fashion to that described by Mr Pitman.

And Nikki Martin has told The Express this week that only on Saturday, while out walking her dog, she came across a dead deer along the riverbank at East Lambrook, near South Petherton.

She said: "When I looked, I could see there were only the bones and skin left - very similar to the description in the paper."

Other new sightings have come to light in the past few days by people living in the Chard and Donyatt areas. The plot thickens

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