Читать книгу Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside - Brad Steiger - Страница 30

Peter Ross published an interview with Di Francis, one of the most persistent of all the big cat hunters in NEWS.Scotsman.com on December 2, 2009. Francis, a Londoner now living in Banffshire, is said to have pioneered big cat investigations in the late 1970s. During the winter of 1982, she camped on Dartmoor in the snow until she managed to take the first daytime photograph of a British big cat, a large black animal larger than a Doberman. She claims to have made six sightings since that time, some in Scotland.

Although many who have studied the subject grant that there may be black panthers and other large mammals mucking about in England, most of them believe that the beasts are the descendants of animals released by their owners following the introduction of the Dangerous Animals Act of 1976. Di Francis rejects this hypothesis and maintains that the large cat-like creatures are indigenous to the British Isles.