A REPORTED sighting of a big cat roaming a Chester park has been exposed as a hoax - with the creature in question revealed to be Chester Zoo's black jaguar.

This week, Puma Watch North Wales shared a report submitted to them by Richard and Philip.

They claimed to have taken a photo of a large black cat roaming Chester’s Grosvenor Park.

However, member of Puma Watch used "open-source journalism techniques" to discover that the big cat was Goshi, who is safely housed in his enclosure at Chester Zoo.

Screenshot of the report of a panther sighting. Image: Puma Watch North Wales

Screenshot of the report of a panther sighting. Image: Puma Watch North Wales

Tony Jones, founder of Puma Watch North Wales, said: "Today, thanks to the efforts of the Puma Watch community, we are able to confirm their report is a ‘hoax’. Using open-source journalism techniques, we have successfully matched the location of their photo with the jaguar enclosure at nearby Chester Zoo – enabling us to eliminate their report from our ongoing investigations."

 

He added: "This is the second time we’ve been able to conclusively "debunk" reports of a big cat in recent months. In February, we received multiple sightings, including a video, of a creature prowling fields near Trelogan.

"Within days, we tracked down the owner of an incredibly large pet cat living nearby, and were able to confirm that the ‘big cat’ caught on video was actually Sheldon, described as “the biggest softy ever”. His owner was forced to buy a dog cage to take him to the vets as he can’t fit in a cat carrier.

"However, the witnesses reporting sightings of Sheldon genuinely (and understandably) believed they could have encountered a ‘big cat’. Unfortunately on this occasion, it seems that Richard and Philip intentionally staged a hoax encounter – though they were quickly figured out by the Puma Watch community."

The hoax comes after a series of sightings in Chester, including one where a big cat was caught on camera in Chester Meadows, just metres from Grosvenor Park.

Tony added: On Friday 16th April, Alan Standing spotted what could have been a puma near Blacon, at a location well under a mile from four other recent sightings. Just along the canal to the North, a large, black animal with a very long tail was spotted twice within a week, around the abandoned Old Oaks Golf Course and the Countess of Chester Country Park.

"The sightings followed a 4ft-long cat “with a great big tail” being spotted twice in one night in fields bordering Blacon, behind Sealand Road Asda.

"Big cat sightings are now so commonplace in Chester they have been immortalised in the ‘Lego Chester’ display within Chester Market. Just last week, a member of the public reported an encounter with a “growing and snarling” creature in Huntington’s Caldy Valley Nature Park, while in December, a big cat was caught on camera prowling Chester Meadows."