Horse attacked by Puma in Scotland!!!

Yes I read it too, scary!!

But better a puma than some half witted human being....seems the horsey wasn't too badly hurt but bound to be traumatised.
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Poor boy, hope he is well soon.

I'd like to find out a bit more, I don't live locally but know the place well.
 
if you have a look around, there are quite a lot of sightings and pics of ABCs (Alien Big Cats, as they are called) in this country. i looked into it after hearing one in my fields in Staffs... it was unbelievable, an unmistakeable sound. the next morning my neighbour's husband and her son saw it bounce the hedges across the road in front of them, and then the post lady in the next village watched it for quite a while. i'm pretty sure i saw it in a field while hacking out, it took 3 adult geese in that field in 1 day.
there are some breeding somewhere in Staffs, they are on Cannock Chase, and in various other places. lots of sightings in Leics too.
fwiw there is so much native wildlife for them to eat that they are v v unlikely to bother with a child (god forbid), but i've known of a few horse attacks. One was in Wales, a lady had a big few-month-old foal, IDx so not a little weed, taken clean over the fence and gone...
i put LW rugs on all my horses while it was around.. this is supposed to be the best way to protect your horse. good fencing helps too obv, e.g. close mesh to stop one just walking into field....
the theory is that they use canals as safe routes to get around the country, this made sense as my last place was 1/2 mile from a canal. so, if you keep your horses near a canal, keep your eyes open!
 
Ohh perhaps I'd better warn my parents they live on a canal boat. They've never mentioned seeing one though.
Useless info of the day, the canals are now busier and have more boats on them than they ever did when they were used commercially.
To be honest I'd think they're so busy the big cats would stay well away from them?
 
We had a supposed puma around where I live. It was kept very quiet as a lot of people here have shotguns, and therefore it could be shot and disposed of quickly and quietly if somebody were to spot it!
 
I've seen footprints locally of a big cat and cub, and know that sheep and deer have been taken but the cats are very rarely actually seen - and unless trapped would be reluctant to attack.
 
Am I correct in saying if the claw and drag marks are at the rear end of the carcass, then it is more likely to be a cat, as dogs prefer to go up front and target the neck/throat?

There was a big hoo haa about one over here a few years ago and all the local reporters did a stake-out of some woods - apparently the USPCA were almost onto it but a snapper disturbed it and it ran off. Oops.
 
A magnificent looking big cat in the article. I am a big fan of big cats, but when they are in their natural and appropriate environment.

How likely would it be to attack a grumpy 16.3 Clydesdale x highland?

I am glad it is not near me and hope the pony recovers soon. Must have been terrified.
 
We had a puma alert in Jan. One of the reasons we have a mule; mules kick puma butt
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Farm next door said it had killed sheep, goats and a foal. It's most unlikely that a Puma will go for a full-sized horse and even MORE unlikely that it'll attack near a caravan park; they are very, very shy.

ETS: On reflection, if a puma were raised in captivity, then it's not unreasonable to expect it to be bolder than usual.
 
I've seen a very large black cat in Fife, near Kilconquhar, but that was years ago.
And there are wallabies on one of the islands on Loch Lomond - they are incredibly fierce.

S
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Hmmm....so where about it's Staffs? Just South Staffs? We're on the Cheshire border with Staffs....as far North as you can get and still be in Staffs (the border is half a mile down the road from us).
 
It was bound to happen one day
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,think the nearest sighting to us was in north east lincs,pleased my boy in at night though
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It's kind of close to me, pretty unusual for them to go after horses I'd think! There's a fair few allegedly knocking about the countryside, it's perfectly feasible - in the past it was 'fashionable' to have private zoos, but when upkeep became too expensive a lot of these animals were let out in the wild to fend for themselves. There's a guy local to me who documents sightings in our area, there have been a scary amount. We saw a big black cat on a few occasions (years ago though), didn't know they followed canals but the reckoning is they also travel along dismantled railway lines as well - we have an old railway line in our area and all of our sightings were on or around it. You'd sometimes get that 'watched' feeling riding along it as well, usually before the ponies turned tail and bolted lol!
 
I never knew the other name for a mountain lion was a puma. Something attacked my friends horse and gave it slash marks, along with its companion in the field, but we never did find out what it was. We are in countryside in Warwickshire so I suppose its within the realms of possibility that someone wealthy in the area once kept a wild animal as a pet and when it got to big released it into the countryside as so many people in the 70's and 80's did.
 
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the theory is that they use canals as safe routes to get around the country, this made sense as my last place was 1/2 mile from a canal. so, if you keep your horses near a canal, keep your eyes open!

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Hmm... don't think that's the case up here in Scotland as we don't have many canals :P We've got loads of stories round here of big cats, loads of people say they've seen them wondering around our hillsides amongst the forestry etc. Someone locally claimed to have been attacked by one a few years ago - she had big scratch marks all over her, her pic was in the papers (apparently she went into her yard to do her horses and accidentally cornered it).

I think the chances are very slim they will attack things like horses, but it clearly does happen. I dont know why people are still skeptical about if they exsist. They can live quite happily in the UK! I'm lucky in that my horses are kept in an open area (ie. nowhere near forestry / hills etc.).
 
i think they use the canals down south because they're usually quiet, grassy towpaths with lots of rabbits, rats etc (yum yum).
i'm sure there are loads of ABCs out there tbh, but there's so much food and cover here that they're very rarely seen.
 
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