A rise in UK sightings of " alien species"

according to latest figures there have been over 10THOUSAND sigtings in the last 6 years .

part of the increase will be due to increased awareness and growing acceptance of " wied sigting " reports .

but the break down is interesting :

Reported seen

5,931 big cats (including panthers, pumas, leopards, lynx)

3,389 sharks

332 wild boars

51 wallabies

43 snakes

15 owls

13 dangerous spiders (including a tarantula and a Black Widow)

13 racoons

10 crocodiles

7 wolves

4 eagles

3 pandas

2 scorpions

1 penguin

some of the entries baffle me , especially the wallabies -- there is a entire colony of them in essex which supports a viable " wild " breeding population .

unless the wallaby sigtings cited are in remote parts of the country where the essex colony would not reasonably be expected to venture .

I've heard of scorpions - there are a whole wall of the little buggers in Ongar Station in Essex. What gets me is the Pandas. What? Eh? Where are they hiding and what are they eating? Did someone plant a bamboo forest for them as well? As for the racoons - groans - well there (eventually) go my bins!

Add to that the snapping turtle population in the back waters here in Oxford -Its great, you can be lazing by the river and they just swim on by - not a care in the world....but you try and catch them, and woosh, there gone to the bottom in the blink of an eye!

cool colours though...

Haha, somebody saw a penguin? were they in a zoo perchance?

I'm not remotely suprised to see the majority of reports are of cats. Most places have their own big-cat story! We thought we heard one once in wales, but it turned out upon closer inspection to be a Deer. Which was just as good really!

[edit on 20-9-2006 by City_sea]

[edit on 20-9-2006 by City_sea]

Hi all.

The whole big cat thing can be explained by in the 70's or 80's i think the dangerous animals act came in which meant you were not allowed to keep dangerous animals such as big cats. So avoiding getting into trouble by keeping them and that the zoos had so many requests to take them from private collectors, many of them just let them out in the wild. I for one have seen one.

With the wallabies, I know that around where i live there is a place called whipsnade zoo. which in the 80's a bunch of wallabies escaped and because they had already adapted to our climate from being in the zoo etc they managed to survive.

I heard that scorpions are native to this country any way only small ones mind and only in some parts of the country but i could be wrong

But a penguin By god I want to see a wild penguin in england. I can't promise that i wouldn't try to steal it.

But I think most foriegn animals can be from people who have smuggled them into the country and they have escaped, or escaped from zoos.

hope that helped

Alan

that's a lot of sharks for England. I wonder, are they all land sharks or are some of those sighting in the water and, if so, what's so strange about seeing a shark in the water?

Add a Polar Bear I saw a Polar Bear...................



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Originally posted by almeister 5000
Hi all.

The whole big cat thing can be explained by in the 70's or 80's i think the dangerous animals act came in which meant you were not allowed to keep dangerous animals such as big cats. So avoiding getting into trouble by keeping them and that the zoos had so many requests to take them from private collectors, many of them just let them out in the wild. I for one have seen one.

Alan

Now I have heard from somebody who is involved in the alien big cats research community that some of them believe we've had breeding populations of big cats here since Roman times, backed up by sightings going back hundreds of years. Just something I've heard.

I'd love to see the Wallabies, we have some colonies of parqueets living out on the Thames marshes near me and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a sizeable corn snake population over here now, due to the amount that have been sold as pets and escaped over the years. My freinds dad caught a large grey rat snake, which is an American species, hanging around his fish pond looking for lunch.

The big cat debate can be easily explained.

Back in 1974 a law was passed banning the unlicenced ownership of large cats. During this time many people owned large cats like lynx, puma etc. The authorities took a strong stance on this as they were considered dangerous. People who feared their beloved pets would be destroyed if handed over to officials simply let them free in remote areas to fend for themselves. The population of these cats are small but they still exist around the country