Monster season in the UK

Summer madness again descends on Her Majesty’s subjects, while tales of mythical beasts and monsters wandering the green countryside abound.

Two years ago, it was a giant pike which snapped the legs off dogs and people swimming in a pond, then it was a giant green lizard that leapt at people and bit them on the head. Last year it was swarms of killer wasps and bees and in 2002, it’s the big cats again.

Scores of people tour the countryside with camera and shotguns, registering paw prints and fur samples of large cats. Reports abound of sheep being slaughtered as giant feral cats roam the countryside and in the past year alone, there have been 800 recorded sightings of big cats. Not all are sceptical.

Daniel Bamping, founding member of the British Big Cats Society, declares that “Big cats in Britain are real. They are out there, they are breeding, there’s more of them”. In Scotland, the lynx, a protected species, is breeding and its numbers are on the increase but elsewhere, there does not seem to be a logical reason behind the increased number of sightings and reports of attacks.

One man, from the southern country of Kent, claims he was attacked by a feline the size of a large dog. One thing is clear…every August, a wave of hysteria sweeps across Britain, bringing with it tales of monsters and attacks by wild animals.

John ASHTEAD PRAVDA.Ru LONDON UNITED KINGDOM