Big cat fever has been gripping the south with a number of sightings of the elusive animal. Duncan Eaton reports...

IT WAS like any normal Saturday morning. People were relaxing after the stresses of the working week by taking a stroll through an idyllic rural corner of Hampshire.

But a shadow was hanging over the apparently carefree walkers.

Could a panther be on the prowl in West End's Itchen Valley Country Park where dog walkers and joggers normally freely roam?

It was a question that the Daily Echo was asking and was causing serious paws for thought in the close-knit community. So we stepped up our investigations following the latest mystery big cat sighting.

Pensioner Caroline Gilbert raised the fresh big cat alert after a mystery beast was seen leaping out of the bushes in front of her as she walked her two dogs around Itchen Valley Country Park.

The 62 year-old watched as the ferocious feline sprinted for 30 seconds before it disappeared into woodland near a reservoir.

But there was no panther panic over the weekend at the country park which is a favourite natural playground for hundreds of outdoor enthusiasts.

Many dog walkers had read Daily Echo reports about the sightings. But it was not putting them off from taking their canine pals for a run through the vast park's network of trails.

One walker said: "I have got five dogs so I do not think the panther will come near me !"

The park has a big deer population - a gastronomic delight for panthers - but there had been no reports of attacks or carcasses being discovered.

The Itchen Valley Park sighting came just days after West End's St James Primary School was at the centre of a big cat drama.

A panther-like creature was seen stalking in a nearby field and headmaster Alec Smith immediately responded by declaring it a no-go area.

Since then Daily Echo phone lines have been buzzing with reports of other sightings.

Mother-of-two Tracy Reilly told the Daily Echo that last Wednesday she came face to face with a panther in a country lane near her home in Avington Park, Itchen Abbas.

The following day 24-year-old Steve Lawrence, of Totton, was driving to work when a mystery beast suddenly leapt in front of his car.

It was while he was travelling along the B3084 between Mottisfont and Broughton.

He said: "It was about 30 to 40 metres away. The animal was very big and very black with a long tail."

Convinced that it was similar to a panther, he said: "It bounded across the road in two jumps and then went into bushes."

Sue Freewoman reckons she saw the black panther in the early hours of January 14.

It was not a million miles away from the West End sighting.

She was walking by a very wooded area in the Somerset Avenue area of Harefield when an animal with very pointed black ears suddenly came out of the bushes.

She said: "There was a terrific noise as it came out of the bushes. It was very large and not a dog. It disappeared into the bushes and started to follow me."

She could not get to her door fast enough and added: "I was scared stiff."

The British Big Cats Society (BBCS) have quickly pounced on the reported sightings.

BBCS member John Gledson, who lives in Gosport, is planning this week to visit the area near St James Primary School at West End.

He was hoping to get some photographic evidence which might shed some light on a mystery which has become the talking point of the village and further afield.

The BBCS was founded in the first half of 1991 by Danny Bamping to "identify, quantify, protect and catalogue the big cats at large in the countryside."

The society collects data on encounters with alien big cats passing the information on to, among others, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The government department collects data on such incidents when there is a detrimental effect to livestock.

Mr Gledson says: "In the last few years the numbers of sightings has increased to such an extent that direct encounters with people in inhabited areas are taking place on a more regular basis.

"The figures for the last year alone show a staggering 1077 encounters in the UK with Scotland and Devon topping the big cat list."

He said that the BBCS was holding a meeting at its headquarters on Dartmoor to assign regional representatives in order to provide a structured approach to the reporting and cataloguing reports on a countrywide basis.

Mr Gledson said the commonly held belief is that the current big cat population stemmed from an Act of Parliament passed in 1976.

He said: "The Dangerous Animals Act set stringent regulations on those who wished to keep exotic pets in private menageries. Rather than apply for the expensive licence and costly enclosure structures some opted to release their animals into the wild.

"Owing to a loophole in British law releasing exotic creatures into the wild was not illegal until 1981 when the Wildlife and Countryside Act forbade this."

Mr Gledson added: "Some of the big cats released may have bred which may, as there may have been a variety of species in the wild, produced hybrid breeds."

He said currently the emphasis was to prove the existence of these creatures and establish their numbers and location.

Daily Echo investigations in Itchen Valley Country Park did not uncover any clues of a big cat on the loose.

The only distinctive paw marks we found were the ones on a sign which read: "Dog walks - please follow trail".