Truth Proof Report 207 - lynx in the New Forest?

Date of sighting 2018

Hi Paul.

After seeing you on Howard Hughes’ show recently, I had a peek at your website today. I noticed that someone reported seeing a lynx in one report. If you are collating such sightings, then I have one to add:-

Before retiring just over 3 years ago my wife and I regularly spent a week each year in the New Forest. Keen on wildlife, we would often “creep around” in camo. with binoculars slung over our necks. We would stay at the same place every year, just outside East End and would always do at least one walk around the nearby Norley Wood.

At the northern end of that wood, about 5 years ago, I was walking a good few yards in front of my wife and cautiously approached a fence which separated the wood from the surrounding gorsey scrub. I looked out hoping to catch something by surprise - and I did. about 30 metre away, a tawny cat sensed me and ran for cover into the bushes. It looked as big as a roe door, but not a roe deer, chunky with big paws rather than delicate hooves and lower legs; it ran obliquely away so I did not get a good view of the head, but there was no long neck as in a deer and the head was not held upright as you would expect from a startled deer. It definitely was not a dog, being entirey the wrong shape, with the the short thick tail of a Lynx, and it bounded away rather than ran. It was a clear bright day in May and visibility was excellent.

Back in the woods, we looked for signs, and indeed found large cat-like prints on a section of soft path. Too big for a household moggie, there were no claw impressions, except for one toe which kept repeating. We speculated that the animal that left the print had damaged a foot so that it was unable to retract that particular claw. However, the prints were indistinct, and certainly not text-book picture quality. If we had had a camera with us we could have taken pictures, but it was doubtful whether anything could have been gleaned from an image of a patch of mud with dimples in it (we had been coming to the New Forest for a dozen years, and were not too fussed about taking more pictures, so the cameras, and phone, were back at the cottage that day - usually took shots of cute foals anyway!)

I felt privileged, and lucky, but accepted the fact that I had seen a lynx - after all there have been reports of non-native or cryptid cats all over the country for decades. So not exactly huge news, I thought. When I mentioned the sighting to one of the owners of the place we were staying, he expressed no surprise, telling me that “they have them” but that they like to keep it quiet. He was a New Forest commoner of 80 years, so presumably knew what he was talking about!

Regards Allan H

Paul: Thanks for this Alan. We certainly do not know everything about the creatures in the forests!