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• There are many wondrous and amazing stories of various creatures throughout history. Here month by month we will be looking deeper into the myths and legends of these magical and mystifying beasts.

 Interview with a Crypto zoologist

• Jenny chats to Richard Freeman about his fascinating research and expeditions in search of legendary monsters

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The Loch Ness Monster - Nessie

Loch Ness is part of the Great Glen, an enormous fissure that nearly splits Scotland in two. It is the largest freshwater lake in Britain at four miles long and, at its widest point two and a half miles. At its deepest points the Loch is around 750 feet, it's average depth being 450 feet. Because the waters are very cold and also very cloudy it is difficult to see more than a few feet into its depths.

The legend of the Loch Ness Monster is thought to have been started with an account of Saint Columba in 565 A.D where he is said to have rescued a swimmer from a Lake Monster.

Sightings

It was after the building of the road alongside the Loch in 1933 that the Legend of "Nessie" really took off. One of the first sightings in 1933 was reported by the Mackay's and Alex Campbell. The Mackays owned a pub near the Loch and, on April 14th they reported seeing an "enormous animal" in the waters. The person they reported this to was Alex Campbell, the man responsible for controlling salmon fishing in the Loch. Due to his work Mr. Campbell spent much time observing the Loch and after the initial report by the Mackays he stated he saw the Loch Ness Monster a number of time, describing it as 30 foot long and having a long tapering neck leading to a smallish head with a serpentine look about it.

One reported sighting that isn't so widely known about happened in 1934. Arthur Grant, a veterinary student claimed he saw the "monster" crossing the road as he rode along on his motorbike. His description of the creature very much matched the description of a Plesiosaurus, a relative of the dinosaur thought to have been extinct for 65 million years. For many years people believed that the monster of the Loch might indeed be a Plesiosaurus. However, in 2006 Dr Leslie Noe, a palaeontologist at Cambridge University's Sedgwick Museum, discovered that the osteology of the neck of a plesiosaur would make it certain it could not "lift its head up, swan-like, out of the water."

An event on the 5th of June, 1934 was considered to be of importance but was not widely publicised. It involved a young girl from the Fort Augustus area who was employed as a maid in a large house close to abbey. It was about 6:30 a.m., the maid was looking out of a window down the Loch. She saw on the shore, ' one of the biggest animals she had seen in her life, ' at a range of about 200 yards. Her description was similar to those of others, giraffe like neck, small head, skin like an elephant and two very short fore legs or flippers. She watched it for around 20 mins when it re-entered the water and disappeared.

During the war Loch Ness was in control of the Navy and the loch area was secured. In May, 1943, a Mr C.B. Farrel of the Royal Observer Corps was on duty when he observed some movement  at a distance of 250 yards. He reported that he saw a 20-30 ft  monster's body with a neck which was approximately 4-5ft above the surface of the water. The eyes, he explained, were large and the body of the monster appeared to have a 'fin'. It finally submerged without a movement on the water.

There have been hundreds of other "sightings" but some of the most interesting have been accompanied by photographs.

In 1951 on the the 14th of July at around 6:30 a.m. Mr Lachlan Stewart, a woodcutter employed by the forestry commission, saw something large moving out on the Loch. With a friend he ran to the waters edge and there about 50 yards away they saw three humps, each about 5 ft long moving at fast speed. Mr Stewart ,who had picked up a small camera before leaving his house, took this photograph.

Four years later one of the most intriguing pictures of "Nessie" was taken. While on holiday Peter Macnab was preparing to take a photograph of Urquhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness when his attention was drawn to the waters to the left of the castle. He reported that he saw an enormous dark animal with two humps and immediately took this photograph.

One of the most famous pictures of the Loch Ness monster was taken in 1934 by a London surgeon. This picture however caused much dispute and is now generally considered to have been a hoax. )

One of the largest and most scientifically intense searches of Loch Ness, in search of the "monster" has been Operation Deepscan. This was the brainchild of Adrian Shine who at the time was the leader of the "Loch Ness project" and involved him teaming up with Darrell Laurence head of Laurence Electronics in Oklahoma. Laurence had recently started to evolve and improve his sonar units and so it seemed Loch Ness and the search for "Nessie" would be an ideal testing ground.

And so, in October 1986 ten boats fitted with Laurence's X-16 sonar units started to trawl the Loch. This particular type of sonar was used as it records fluctuations on a paper chart meaning that  readings can be analysed properly.  Unfortunately this expedition was doomed to fail as bad weather, including winds up to force 6 hit the Loch leaving them with just yards of meaningless sonar readings. Therefore Operation Deepscan was cancelled that year.

Undeterred they returned the following year and so on October 9th the largest sweep of any Loch anywhere in the world began. In all 24 boats were involved on this occasion with every lay-by around the Loch full of cars and interested spectators. In addition over 250 news reporters and 20 television crews from around the globe were there to record the event.

Using the boats in a line the X-Sonar's formed a "curtain"  that would move up the Loch preventing any "creature" to go undetected. Here-in lay their first problem as, on starting they found the Sonar's actually interfered with each other causing strange and useless readings. This problem however was overcome and the search continued. On the first day 3 strong sonar contacts were recorded from 78 metres (256ft) to 180 metres (590ft). The best of these was made just off Whitefield opposite Urquhart Bay. It was confirmed that these readings were stronger than would be expected in a fresh water Loch and would suggest an animal larger than a shark but smaller than a whale. And so the excitement grew and the second days searching started with everybody in high spirits. Unfortunately nothing was recorded on their second sweep of the Loch, with 60% of the Loch covered and the other 40% inaccessible because of the water being too shallow, the expedition ended. The readings from the first day certainly suggested something unusual had caused strange readings however what this was remained a mystery.

Since then there have been many "expeditions " to the Loch. Some have once again seen the use of sonar equipment, other have been more about trying to capture video and photographic evidence. However, neither methods have brought us any proof that the Loch Ness Monster exists. There have been suggestions that maybe Nessie hides in underground caves out of the way of prying eyes. However, with the Loch being so deep there are as yet no Sonar devices that will allow exploration of the caves, so maybe that is how she escapes us. There is also a much sadder theory. With "sightings" falling dramatically over the last few years there is the suggestion that "Nessie" is actually dead. Using the theory that the "monster" is actually a remaining example from the times of dinosaurs some scientists suggest that global warming may have seen her demise as climate change did to her relatives so many years ago.

News: May 2008 The Esoteric Team will be spending 48 hours at Loch Ness, researching and interviewing this wonderful ledged. We will be compiling a 1.5 hour documentary as well as an extensive report accompanied by video footage and any findings.

The Path of the Panther

The distribution of Big Cat reports in North East England

Report by Ian Bond

In the current climate of big cat reports, where it seems that every little town beginning with B has its “Beast of B…” and every town starting with C has “The C…. Cat”, Durham was in the action early with the so-called Durham Puma.  However even back in the 1980s, when it first came to prominence, it was soon clear that at least three types of Big Cats were being reported and in addition to Pumas there were large, black cats, presumed melanistic Leopard and henceforth referred to in this article as Panthers, and Lynx.  Not only that but sightings also came in from the neighbouring counties of Northumberland and Cleveland.  All three counties come under the remit of Northumbria Mammal Group and, Big Cats being mammals, it seemed not unreasonable for me to look into the phenomenon under the aegis of that group.

When I started collating Big Cat reports for Northumbria Mammal Group in 1999 my first thought was to see if any patterns emerged in their distribution.  Whilst cats are adaptable they do have habitat preferences, whatever those might be in modern Britain.  Also there is nowhere in the world where the above species are sympatric and as they are all members of the guild of predators of medium to large herbivores it was possible that their distribution was shaped by competition between the species, including killing and consumption of one big cat species by another.  Of course this assumed that they existed in sufficient numbers for competition to occur, something which I now seriously doubt, though more of that later.

The reports on which this article is based have been collected mainly from local newspaper articles, members of Northumbria Mammal Group or colleagues and friends who knew that I was interested in the subject and more recently via the Big Cats in Britain (BCIB) organisation.  I am not an active researcher of Big Cats or Big Cat sightings, indeed the only active researcher that I am aware of in the history of the Durham Puma saga has been Eddie Bell and our paths have yet to cross on the subject.  Having written up most of the reports I’ve received for the Big Cat Diaries column in Northumbria Mammal Group’s quarterly newsletter I had a feeling for where the main areas were where big cat reports emanated from.  However then plotting the individual records onto a map of the North East using different colours for different species proved to be a very useful way of bringing the distribution of records into sharper focus.  In plotting the records, I only included those for the past ten years and in practice all but five of the records were from 2000 onwards.  This is because with older records it is likely that the individual cat in question is no longer alive.  Of the older records that I am aware of many would fit the current patterns, though in the mid 1990s there was a cluster of records from the Otterburn/ Kirkwhelpington area in mid-Northumberland and earlier still a number of records, including a confirmed scat, from Teesdale in south-west Durham.  A friend of mine, who knew some of the gamekeepers in Teesdale, asked them a few years back if they thought there were big cats roaming around their patches.  They replied to the effect that it might have been the case 10 years ago, but certainly not recently.  Consequently I think it is more useful to confine the study to more recent sightings.  Reports were broken down into four species categories: Panther, Puma, Lynx and unspecified.  The unspecified category included those second-hand reports where there wasn’t sufficient detail given to assign the animal to a species category.  It also included a few first-hand reports which might have been well observed and clearly reported, but where the description didn’t comfortably fit with a known species.

The study is based on a total of sixty-five reports.  Of these forty-two can best be described as Panther; five as Puma; three as Lynx with fifteen unspecified.

The dots on the map confirmed my general impression as to the main centres of reports being north Stockton/Sedgefield; Consett/Hexham and the North Yorks Moors around Guisborough, but added an additional hotspot, or at least a reasonably warm spot, of six reports in the Morpeth area.

The area of north Stockton/Sedgefield had the most reports with a total of fifteen Panther; one Puma and four unspecified between the A1 and Hartlepool with the vast majority from an area of some fifteen by ten kilometres; in fact, all but two of these reports were within approximately ten kilometres of all the others.  I have dubbed these the “Trimdon Panther” as the reports seemed to roughly correspond with Tony Blair’s constituency boundary, though looking at the map all of the recent records are actually a little south of Trimdon.   Seven of the reports have been from the former Wynyard estate.  This is the third largest woodland complex between the Tyne and the Tees; most of it has no public access and even much of the area that forms part of what is now the Wynyard Woodland Park is not readily accessible due to the dense undergrowth.  Interestingly the clearest report from this area was actually the single sighting of a Puma in 1999 crossing the main path at the Wynyard Woodland Park.  A further cluster of five records are grouped just east of Darlington and are all roughly about 10km south of the “Trimdon Panther” cluster.

There have been six reports around Guisborough, all of panther.  Whilst politically in the Tees Valley the forests here are on the northern perimeter of the North Yorks Moors and there are very large areas of overlapping woodland, mostly coniferous plantation, down the western perimeter and along the southern perimeter of these Moors into Ryedale.   There have been numerous sightings from these other areas and it is likely that the animal(s) responsible for the Guisborough sightings are also the source of the sightings further south.

The sightings from Consett west to Hexham are more of a mixed bag with four of Panther, one Puma, two Lynx and five unspecified.  There was even a sighting of a dog-sized striped animal, reported as a tiger but with so few details that it could have just as well have been a brindled greyhound and which I am discounting for the purposes of this article.  Again this general area is heavily wooded and vies with Hamsterley Forest, from which I have heard of no reports, for having the most woodland between the Tyne and Tees, though here it is a complex of woodlands rather than a single large block as at Hamsterley.

These three areas plus the six reports from around Morpeth accounted for forty-three out of the sixty-five reports.  Of the remaining records, only nine records are more than 10 kilometres from the four core areas and, of these nine, 4 form a small, very separate cluster in the Wooler/Lowick area near the Scottish border.  Just as interesting are the areas where there are few or no reports.  There is only one report from mid or western Northumberland, that of a panther at Bellingham in 2001.  There are no reports from the remote and extensive areas of Kielder Forest or the Cheviot Hills.  Similarly in County Durham, other than the cluster around Consett, there are only 5 reports west of the A1 and only a single for the whole of the Durham Dales area, that of a panther at Eastgate in Sept 2006.  Yet the above areas are among the most remote in England with Kielder being the largest forest in England.

Looking at the distribution of the less-commonly reported species, the two clearest Lynx reports where from the Consett/Hexham cluster and, I understand, there have been a few older reports from this area and around Durham City.  The third Lynx report was from Quarry Wood at Preston Park in Stockton but there was some ambiguity attached to the description in this report and it may have been better to class it as unspecified.  The Puma reports are almost evenly spaced at approximately 15km intervals across the east of the region from Thorpe Thewles in the south to near Morpeth in the north.  One of the clearest of these is actually the most recent, from near Stanley in May 2006.

What, if anything, does the above tell us about big cat distribution in North East England.  Well firstly it should be noted that any conclusions are based on reports of Big Cat sightings, not necessarily all of which are actual Big Cat sightings.  Whilst Puma and particularly Lynx are fairly distinctive in having a colour or shape that is not reproduced in the vast majority of domestic cats, there are a lot of black cats roaming about which could resemble Panthers if the scale at which they were being viewed wasn’t clear.  One of the first cautionary notes that bird watchers learn is that size in the field is notoriously difficult to judge and this might be even more the case for cat sightings which are generally fleeting and take the observer by surprise.  I used to try and classify the reports into category A, which was those to which I could attach a very high degree of confidence and category B, which were those which may well have been big cats but which left room for an alternative explanation.  In practice though, this method works best where there isn’t a lot of room for confusion and it could be argued that many black cat sightings leave room for doubt due to the possibility of confusion with domestic cats.  (The Bigfoot Field Research Organisation uses this method to good effect but then there is less room for confusion with other species when dealing with reports of eight-foot bipedal apes!)  A more detailed assessment system is used by the Vincent Wildlife Trust when looking at reports of Pine Martens in England & Wales.  This uses a scoring system based on factors such as circumstances of the sighting, experience of the observer etc, but it depends on being able to interview the witness first-hand which is not the case in many of the reports that I have collated.  So in analysing these reports we have to live with a potentially large source of error.

It is an axiom of wildlife recording that the distribution of records reflects the distribution of recorders.  This is clearly the case with this data set.  Most of the records that come to me personally are from the south of the area, which is where I live and work.  In fact it is probably no surprise to learn that I worked at the Wynyard Woodland Park for several years over the period for which I have been collecting data and, although only two of the reports came during the period in which I worked there, I still keep in touch with staff there and swap wildlife records.  Contrast this with the six reports from Morpeth, none of which would have come to me except through the BCIB website.  For the same period I only obtained two records out of the twenty for the “Trimdon Panther” cluster via the BCIB website.  If we are justified in extrapolating this to other areas in the North East it could be argued that there are quite a few additional records in other areas that a local recorder might obtain and this of course could totally change the picture of Big Cat distribution. 

In spite of these shortcomings there are enough good quality reports to indicate that at least three Big Cat species have been at large recently in the North East and plotting only the Class A reports mentioned above would give a broadly similar picture to that obtained from plotting all of the reports.  So if we assume that there have been, or continue to be, at least some Big Cats at large in the North East, can we make any estimation of how many cats we are dealing with; could it just be that there is a single animal of each species roaming at length across the region?  Kitchener (1991) summarises a number of studies into the ranges of different cat species.  For each species the range size varies considerably both within and between studies.  A study by Herfindel et al (2005) found that home range size could vary by a factor of 10 and that this is strongly influenced by prey density, though the biggest factor in determining home range size is the sex of the animal, as the territories of males overlap two or more female ranges and are therefore typically the corresponding number of times as large.  Kitchener gives figures for Lynx home ranges of between 46 and 135 km² for females and 275 and 450 km² for males, whereas a study by Linnell et al of Lynx home ranges in Scandinavia found home ranges of between 300-1400km², the highest recorded for the species.  Home ranges for Puma can also be large, up to 826 km², but Guggisberg (1975) quoting Hornocker would suggest that a typical range is perhaps 60-70 km² for females and perhaps three times that for males.  Leopard home ranges would seem generally to be smaller, between 8 and 80km², though this is for animals from tropical regions where prey density may be significantly higher.

What the home range of any of these cats would be in Britain is a matter of speculation, but it is worth noting that all of the “Trimdon Panther” reports cluster within an area of c300 km² and to take in the additional 5 reports east of Darlington would expand the putative territory to around 500 km².  Leaving aside the exceptional lynx territories in Scandinavia, this is getting towards the upper limit of Big Cat territory size.  It would seem unlikely that any Big Cat living in the Sedgefield area is also holding territory around Hexham.   On the other hand Morpeth is only 25km in a straight line from Hexham and it is not impossible that these sightings could be of the same individual.  The reports around Guisborough are only some 10-15km from those in Sedgefield and Darlington but are separated from them from by the large urban conurbation of Teeside; as stated above it seems more likely that these reports are contiguous with other reports from the North York Moors.  On the other hand studies of Big Cat home ranges would usually occur in situations where interactions with other individuals of its species go some way towards defining the boundaries of a cat’s territory.  Whereas a male cat’s territory will usually be limited to that of two or three females territories, one might suspect that it would roam more widely if it were a single animal with no other male’s territories to avoid or females to stay in the vicinity of.  Even so, while a male might travel huge distances in search of a female, it would be unheard of for one to regularly patrol a territory of the area from the Tees up to Morpeth, let alone Wooler. 

Making the above assumptions then, including the fundamental one that most of the reports are of the animals they purport to describe, it seems likely that there are or have been at least four Panthers at large at Guisborough, Stockton/ Sedgefield, Consett/ Hexham/(Morpeth?) and Wooler; two Pumas at Stockton and Stanley and a Lynx at Consett.  That makes seven Big Cats in total, though not all of them are necessarily contemporaneous.  I have only heard of one report that would indicate that breeding has occurred, that of a mother and cub at Elwick in 2004.  If true this would mean that the animals are, in fact, travelling further than I’ve assumed or that the “Trimdon Panther” is at least two animals of different sexes.

By way of a conclusion I probably can’t add a great deal to comments I made a couple of years back for an article in the Northern Echo.  From the quality of some of the reports there is good reason to believe that there are, or have been recently, Big Cats of at least three different species at large in the North East.  What seems equally as clear though is that these are largely isolated individuals and, even allowing for the occasional breeding event, this is a population that would be described in any other circumstances as critically endangered or even effectively extinct.  In my opinion, whether we continue to have Big Cats in the North East depends either on future surreptitious releases or whether there are viable populations of these animals in other parts of the country from which individuals could disperse into the region; whilst the former is always possible, the latter I think is very unlikely.

References

Guggisberg C.A.W., (1975) Cats of the World; David & Charles, Newton Abbott

Herfindal, I; Linnell, J.D.C; Odden, J; Nilsen, E.B and Anderson R; (2005) Prey density, environmental productivity and home-range size in the Eurasian Lynx (Lynx lynx); Journal of Zoology 265:63-71

Kitchener A., (1991)  The Natural History of Wild Cats, Christopher Helm, London

Linnel, J.D.C; Andersen, R; Kvam, T; Andren, H; Liberg, O; Odden, J and Moa. P.F. (2001) Home Range Size and Choice of Management Strategy for Lynx in Scandinavia; Environmental Management, Vol 27, No 6

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