Big Cat Conversations

Our first guest Robin Baker describes three big black cat sightings from the Forest of Dean and two pieces of his resulting artwork which include black leopards. Robin also explains his ‘Big Five’ creatures of the Dean which feature in his artwork.
Robin also explains the scowles of the Forest of Dean, a landform which inspired Tolkein’s Lord of the Ring’s Middle-earth landscape. The scowles are gullies in the woods, produced by ancient iron ore mining and now used as eerie backdrops to Star Wars and Harry Potter film scenes. These channels are also highly suited to big cats, for their routes and their ambush positions.
Our second guest is Gary Ridley, back from episode 131. He fronted the recent Big Cat Investigator program in the BBC Our Lives series, available on I Player. Gary responds to podcast listeners’ different feedback on the program. The program had an emphasis of the quest rather than the proof, and Rick and Gary discuss a key item which didn’t make the final edit…   
Word of the week:   scowles
29 July 2026

Our first guest Ellie watched two pumas in Wiltshire in April this year. Still fresh from the excitement she describes the incident, and the new sense of wildness it brings to the British landscape for her. She also explains how this experience influences her work as an artist. She has recently seen a darker shaded puma in a sanctuary in Georgia, USA, that matches the colour tone of the Wiltshire ones.    
Ellie has been invited to Wildside (ep 137 of our podcasts) to be an artist in residence, to illustrate pumas and other animals at the sanctuary. Some of Ellie’s working sketches and illustrations of the pumas are available to see on The Refs & Links page of the Big Cat Conversations website.
Our second guest Sophie was staying at a property next to Wildside in Herefordshire last year. Her fish barbeque had already attracted two farm cats one evening, but then a much bigger one entered the grounds. The farm cats dived for cover, and Sophie discusses whether it was the barbecue smell that attracted the puma-like big cat, or the wailing sound coming from nearby at Wildside, that sounded like a puma on heat…  
Words of the week:   rufous pelage 
30 June 2026

We hear from several big cat witnesses at the Dean Heritage Centre, recorded at the Art & Science of British Big Cats event in April-May 2026. 
Key guests include Will, a 16-year-old investigator who has had three big cat encounters in the Forest of Dean area, and 10-year-old George, who travelled from Somerset with his mun Louise to take part. George looks for evidence in southwest England, and with his dad he recently observed a big cat skulk away at dusk as they were watching beavers.
Artist Rob Amos describes chatting with visitors at the event while he produced his oil painting of a ‘Gloucestershire black leopard at dusk’ to engage people for the final three days. 
See photos on Big Cat Conversations website Refs & Links page, and a video with snippets from the event will soon be available via the Big Cat Conversations YouTube  channel. 
Words of the week:   weird is cool   
31 May 2026

We hear from Paul, a retired woodsman from mid Suffolk. He has had three encounters with large cats, including one watching him through the bracken. He describes his own incidents and others he has heard.  
Paul explains his tree management work across the local countryside and considers how big cats would use woods and features of the landscape.     
Paul and Rick also discuss actions to get more evidence in Suffolk, including a ‘camera wall’ being set up across a nature reserve on a farm.
Words of the week:   non-invasive study
28 April 2026

Ian encountered two black leopards in a midlands wood at dusk, watching them rush through the dry reeds by a dyke.
Ian discusses his close observation of the playful large cats, and mentions other snippets on similar big cats he has heard from the area. Our second guest Damian also keeps watch for big cat activity around Northamptonshire. He discusses a hoisted half-eaten roe deer carcass he found 8 foot up a tree. His interest in the topic began after driving around a road-kill black cat, the scale of a labrador. Then he started scanning the landscape for large cats during his drives in the following years.  One afternoon he got his reward…
Word of the week:   unity
31 March 2026