Cornish Shark, Dartmoor Beast

[Two_Sheds]

Ok, enough already. Are Cornwall and Devon tourist boards so desperate for punters that they are planting these crazy stories to attract visitors?

The shark is clearly a harmless basking shark, and the photos of the Beast of Dartmoor on TV today look like nothing but a big hairy dog...the owner is probably just behind it picking up a dog-bomb

[moggssue]

Surely the opposite effect will happen though - people will be put off going into the water (having visions of Jaws and his friends) and so tourism overall will drop? I agree that the story is totally crazy TS!

[Rowan]

The Dartmoor Beast story was in "Fortean Times" first (this month's edition, if anyone's desperate to read it.) They had several photos, and it was a bit difficult to decide what sort of animal it was - looks different in every one. Not the Hound of the Baskervilles, anyway!

[Polly Fouracre]

My sister,(confirm ,Dinah ,dear!)actually saw a large panther like cat a few years ago in fields near her.We live only a mile or so of Dartmoor and Dinah is not a fanciful person.
I will get her to tell her own story.

[kernowyon]

the killer shark stories appear every year, when there is no real news-worthy items to publish. gullible tourists and newspaper editors lap up these stories with relish (it sells red top papers!). all it takes is one tourist with camera seeing a 10ft+ basking shark in the sea near the coast and bam we have killer sharks breeding off cornwall and just itching to sink there teeth into little tommy on his family beach holiday

[dinah gale]

Big hairy dog? Not this one....

My sister,(confirm ,Dinah ,dear!)actually saw a large panther like cat a few years ago in fields near her.We live only a mile or so of Dartmoor and Dinah is not a fanciful person.
I will get her to tell her own story.

My sister is setting me up for ridicule, I see.

Yes, I saw a panther at about 6.30 am in orl local fields some 17/18 years ago. I thought it was an old labrador at first - it seemed to be walking like a stiff-legged old dog - and while I was wondering who amongst the people in our little hamlet owned an old dog it turned it's head and I realised it was a cat, then noticed the tail which reached down to the ground and turned up at the tip. I called my Jack Russell to me quietly ( she'd tackle anything regardless of size) and the animal spotted me and went onto it's belly in the grass to hide. I walked backwards and used a trick we used to use on foxes when we spotted one , I turned my head away from it and when I looked back it was leaping the hedge and was away. ( with foxes my sister and I would look away then straight back again and it would move then freeze several times until we looked away for long enough for it to make a run, mean things that we were)

I phoned the local police when I got home and the reaction wasn't a surprised one. The guy who answered the phone said that they have a range of over twenty miles and this one could be miles away by this time but he'd get a team out to look for it. I hoped it wouldn't be with a gun!

When I eventually told anyone else about this (I wasn't going to be ridiculed by anybody!) I mentioned it to a person who had a licence to keep wild animals and he told me the timing was about right for them to be visible. When the Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976 came in a lot of people took the easy line and just let their animals go - this guy reckoned that they would have been breeding for long enough for their numbers to be big enough for them to be seen occasionally.

My neighbouring farmer has seen one in the lane too, as did a chap coming home on his motor bike (now he is a big, hairy guy- and he admitted he was scared)

So there you are folks, they are out there and breeding but very shy and will usually try to get away from us. I don't blame them either.

[Alice]

I don't know why the tourist boards in Devon or Cornwall would need to put out such stories . They are both beautiful in their own right.
As for the big cats - I hate to say this for fear of being confirmed mad - but my husband and I both saw a big, black cat, about the size of a labrador dog, but definately a cat ! That was about 300 yards from my house. Only saw it once.

[bubblewrap]

Beast of Dartmoor on sea,? I am willing to rent myself out!
But don,t worry no teeth .............................BUT
.
.
.
.I can give you a nasty suck.

[Nicos]

Oh stop fussing you lot...never heard of survival of the fittest????

[kirsty b]

I like NTG's beast photo in his holiday snaps.