A TEENAGER, a taxi driver and three young boys out walking have provided further evidence that a large, non-native, black cat is at large is South Lakeland.

Seventeen-year-old Rosemary Wilson, a sixth form pupil at Dallam School, Milnthorpe, says she saw the creature while riding last Sunday afternoon.

She spotted the animal, which she described as being three feet long, on a piece of rough ground bordered by woodland between Fell End and Beetham caravan parks.

Meanwhile, Bill Parrington, a taxi driver from Blackpool, claims to have made a sighting while driving into the Winster Valley on a narrow country road.

And three children brothers Luke, 12, and Sam Cousins,10, and their friend, Nick Crawford, all of Staveley also say they saw a large black cat in fields near the filling station at Ings on Sunday.

Miss Wilson, whose father Simon is a local doctor, was riding a pony along a single-track road, which runs parallel to the A6 between Hale and Slackhead, when her mount came to a sudden stop. She said: "The pony stopped because it had caught sight of something across the hedge. I booted it on and it was then that I saw a large, black cat walking slowly, looking into a hedge."

Miss Wilson said she watched the animal walking in her direction for about ten seconds before it disappeared in the hedge. "You read about things like that but you don't expect to see them," she said.

Mr Parrington was driving friends Paul and Elaine Ellis, of Witherslack, home after a night out in Cartmel when he caught a fleeting glimpse in his car headlights of a large cat "slouching down" on the embankment at the side of the road.

"Up to that moment I knew nothing at all of the sightings," said Mr Parrington. "I said Oh God, that looks like a big cat,' and they (the other occupants of the car) started laughing."

He said what struck him was the large round face and ears. "It was not big like a lion but was much bigger than a domestic cat. It had a very long body and was very thin in the middle."

The three boys were out walking their dogs when they saw a large, black cat run alongside a wall across from Rawghyll Farm. They claimed to have watched it for a minute and were so scared by what they had seen that Luke contacted his father, Robin Cousins, asking him to come and pick them up.

Last week the sighting of a puma-like' animal in Wales created national newspaper headlines when it was seen to savage a dog on a farm near the village of Llangadog in the Brecon Beacons.

In recent years, The Westmorland Gazette has reported numerous sightings of large, black cats in areas such as Sizergh, Farleton, Endmoor, Witherslack, Winster, Holme, Burton-in-Lonsdale, Kirkby Lonsdale and Killington.

Capture the cat on film

SEND in a convincing picture of the large, black cat believed to be stalking the countryside in and around South Lakeland and you could win a top photographic prize.

That's the offer being made by The Westmorland Gazette in conjunction with Quicksnaps in Blackhall Yard, Kendal, as we try to get to the bottom of the mystery of just what is out there.

In recent years, the Gazette has carried numerous eyewitness accounts of a non-native feline being seen by members of the public in South Lakeland, Furness, Eden, North Lancashire and North Yorkshire.

We are not questioning what people have seen but to date no hard evidence has been found to prove that the creature really exists.

Peter Thornton, of Quicksnaps, has agreed to offer a two-mega pixel Kodak digital camera worth £150 to anyone who gets a convincing photograph of the beast.

Any pictures submitted will be scrutinised and only those that genuinely appear to feature the animal that has been the subject of articles in the paper will be considered for the prize. The Editor's decision will be final and no correspondence will be entered into. Send your pictures to: Mike Addison, The Westmorland Gazette, 22 Stricklandgate, Kendal, LA9 4NE.

January 17, 2003 10:32