Beast of Bodmin Moor

The Beast of Bodmin Moor is a large black cat-like animal reported on the granite uplands of Bodmin Moor, in Cornwall in south-west England, since the mid-1970s, and blamed by farmers for livestock deaths. It is the best known of Britain's so-called alien big cats, and it is unusual among cryptids in having produced a government file. In 1995 officials of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food spent six months examining eyewitness reports, video, photographs and plaster casts of footprints, and published a report finding no verifiable evidence of a big cat, while conceding that it would never be possible to prove that one was not present. Summarising the findings in the House of Commons in 1998, the minister Elliot Morley said the photographs and footage were of domestic cats, the footprints were those of cats and dogs, and no field or post-mortem evidence linked a big cat to any livestock death investigated. He also told MPs that a leopard skull planted in a stream near the moor had come from a leopard-skin rug. The popular idea that Britain's big cats descend from pets released around the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976, which required a licence rather than banning ownership, rests on very few named admissions and is rejected by some specialists; Defra says no credible evidence of wild big cats has been presented to Natural England since the 1990s.

Most cryptids leave behind folklore. The Beast of Bodmin Moor left behind a government file — and the file, not the animal, is the interesting part. Bodmin Moor is the most south-westerly upland in the United Kingdom, an unglaciated granite plateau whose commons have been grazed by the cattle and sheep of moorland farms for centuries. It is not a national park and never has been. When the Commons debated the Bodmin Moor Commons Bill on 21 May 1996, its sponsor Robert Hicks explained that the whole purpose of the Bill was to create a statutory commoners council, because when he had led a Cornish delegation to the Minister of Agriculture in January 1992 asking for the moor to be made an environmentally sensitive area, the answer had been: "Bob — much as I would like to designate Bodmin moor an ESA, I am afraid that I cannot do this because there is no organisation or body in place with which I can treat." A moor with no authority, no rangers and, at that date, no statutory right of public access is the stage on which the beast appears. Reports of a large black cat on that moor had been accumulating for close to twenty years by the mid-1990s. They were not unique to Cornwall. Speaking in the Commons on 2 February 1998, Keith Simpson, MP for Mid-Norfolk, told the House that "a survey carried out in 1996 claimed sightings of big cats in 34 English counties, so Norfolk's big cat has to compete with, among others, the Fen tiger, the beast of Bodmin, the Durham puma, the Nottingham lion and the cougar of Cupar." Replying for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Elliot Morley put the national volume at "several hundred reports of sightings of big cats" every year. Cornwall's own MP objected to the name. Paul Tyler, who represented North Cornwall, interrupted the same debate to say: "It is the beast of Bodmin moor. The worthy people of Bodmin take some exception to the incorrect description because the beast has never been seen in Bodmin." The animal is named after the upland, not after the town on its western edge. What made Bodmin different was that a department of state went and looked. Two investigations run out of MAFF are on the parliamentary record. The first was ordered by Mrs Browning, then a MAFF minister and MP for Tiverton and Honiton, who asked the Agricultural Development Advisory Service to examine the carcasses of dead farm animals along with photographs and videos said to show big cats. Simpson summarised its result to the House: "The conclusion of the study proved that the farm animals had been victims of large dogs and the photographic evidence proved the cats to be domestic." The second is the one everyone means by "the 1995 report". Officials spent six months on it, working through eyewitness statements, video recordings and plaster casts of footprints, and the published conclusion was that there was "no verifiable evidence" of the presence of a big cat. Morley described to the Commons in 1998 exactly what had been handed in and what became of it: "Evidence such as plaster casts, sheep carcases, video footage and still photographs were submitted and evaluated by MAFF as part of the Ministry's investigation in 1995 of the evidence for the presence of a large exotic cat or cats in the Bodmin moor area… The subsequent report, which was published, concluded that the photographs and video footage were of domestic cats and that the footprints were those of cats and dogs. There was no field or post mortem evidence to indicate the involvement of big cats in any of the livestock deaths that were followed up during the investigation." The authors also wrote the sentence that has kept the case alive ever since: it "would never be possible to prove that an exotic 'big cat' was not present." Then came the skull. It is the single most-repeated episode in the whole story, and the version told in Parliament is blunter than the version told on the moor. Morley, explaining why his department could not chase every report, said: "It is not unknown for practical jokers to be involved — such as the one who planted the skull of a leopard in a stream near Bodmin moor… It turned out that the skull was from a leopard skin rug and had been planted." A leopard's head, but a rug's leopard. Behind all of it sits a piece of legislation. The Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976 received Royal Assent on 22 July 1976, and section 10(2) brought it into operation three months later. Answering a written question on 9 November 1976, the Home Office minister Dr Summerskill confirmed the dates: "This Act came into operation on 22nd October. Anyone who was keeping on that date a dangerous wild animal to which the Act applies has until 20th January next to apply to the local authority for a licence." The Act did not ban keeping a leopard: section 1 required a licence from the local council, with a fee set to cover the authority's costs and conditions on secure accommodation. What gave it teeth was section 4, headed "Power to seize and to dispose of animals without compensation": a council could seize an unlicensed animal and "either retain it in the authority's possession or destroy or otherwise dispose of it", then bill the keeper for the cost. That is the mechanism the popular origin story rests on: private owners facing a licence fee, an inspection and the risk of confiscation, quietly opening the cage door instead. Named admissions are rare. The clearest one on record came in 2000, when a lion tamer called Leslie Maiden, known as One-Eyed Nick, told the Birmingham Post that he had released a panther and a puma in Derbyshire some twenty-five years earlier: "At first I was a bit worried about how they would get on. But I went up to the moors a few weeks later and saw bones of sheep and pheasants, so I think they adapted pretty well." Against that, MAFF kept a ledger. Morley told the House that "a total of 16 big cats have escaped into the wild since 1977. They include lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars and pumas, but all but two animals were at large for only one day." The two exceptions were a leopard, free for seven days before it was cage-trapped, and a tame puma caught near Inverness in 1980 that ended its life in a wildlife park. Britain has certainly held loose exotic cats now and then — a Canadian lynx shot in Devon after attacking two dogs was donated to Bristol Museum in 1903 — but the documented record is of animals that were found, not of a founding population that vanished into the heather.

There is no beast to visit and no museum devoted to it, but Bodmin Moor itself is genuinely open, genuinely free and genuinely rough, and the moor is the point. Access. Bodmin Moor is not a national park. Much of it is registered common land, which under the right to roam counts as open access land: you may walk, run, watch wildlife and climb across it without sticking to paths. What you may not normally do on access land is cycle, ride a horse, camp, drive, take animals other than dogs, or use the water for sport — unless the landowner allows it, or you are on a public bridleway or byway, which horse riders and cyclists may use. Dogs must be on a lead no more than 2 m long between 1 March and 31 July, to protect ground-nesting birds, and at all times around livestock. That last rule is not decorative here: the commons are working grazing for the cattle and sheep of moorland farms, and a management body, the Bodmin Moor commoners council, exists precisely because the moor is farmed. Some areas remain "excepted land" and stay private even inside the access map. Golitha Falls National Nature Reserve is the easiest and best-organised way in, and it sits on the River Fowey — the river that runs through the beast's most famous hoax. It is an 18-hectare gorge of ancient oak and mixed ash woodland, an SSSI for its woodland flora, with more than 120 species of bryophyte, 48 lichens, dormice in the hazel coppice, and salmon, sea trout and otters in the river. It is free and open at all hours. Reach it by minor roads from the A38, A30 or B3254; there is a car park opposite the site entrance, maintained by Inkies Smokehouse BBQ, with a voluntary charge via the RingGo app that goes towards managing the site. From the car park a flat out-and-back path of about 600 m leads to the viewing area for the falls, with benches about 200 m in; the rest of the site is steeper and rougher. Mobile signal is patchy throughout. The nearest train station is Liskeard, with buses from Liskeard to St Cleer; the nearest accessible changing facilities are at Liskeard Public Hall. Natural England warns that winter storms make the River Fowey swell and the falls torrential — take extra care after heavy rain. Reserve enquiries: [email protected]. The high moor — Rough Tor, Brown Willy, the granite tors and the open ground between them — is where the sightings are placed, and it deserves respect rather than enthusiasm. When Parliament debated public access here in 1996, the MP Anthony Steen, who knew both moors well, told the House that Bodmin is "even more inhospitable to walk over than Dartmoor — it is the most difficult and treacherous moor". It is an unglaciated granite upland with wet ground, few landmarks and weather that closes in fast; carry a paper map and compass and do not rely on a phone. Dozmary Pool, the small moorland lake attached to the Arthurian story of Excalibur, is out on that same open ground; check the open access map before setting off, because not every part of the moor is access land and “excepted land” stays private even inside it. If the weather wins, the town of Bodmin has Bodmin Jail, on Berrycoombe Road, Bodmin, PL31 2NR (sat nav PL31 2PY; tel. 01208 76292). The former county gaol now runs self-guided and guided tours, an audio tour, a dark walk, ghost walks and overnight stays, and typically opens from 9.30 am; check the calendar on its site before travelling, since hours and events change through the year. Enjoy it for what it is — and remember Paul Tyler's correction in the Commons: the beast belongs to the moor, and "has never been seen in Bodmin".