Category: News

Reportages en observations des felins dans la compe de Suffolk, 1974-2022

That’s “Reports and sightings of big cats in the county of Suffolk, 1974-2022” in English.French doesn’t really have a concept of “big cats” as they are understood in English, so it’s just felins (felines).

That’s the title of my talk at the Rencontres Europeennes de Cryptozooligie (European Meeting on Cryptozoology) in Dinant, Belgium on 5 November 2023. I had to send my PowerPoint slides to the organisers way back in September for the translation team to look at, as there will be simultaneous translation into French.

This year the talks are in a combination of French and English, at a previous meeting I went to it was nearly all in French. Back in 2017 I gave a talk at the event in French, on Les elephants nain (pygmy elephants) – I was pleased not to have to do it in French again!

Dinant is best known as the birthplace of Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone (there’s a statue of Sax sitting on a bench near where his house was). It’s also known by Belgians as the scene of a terrible massacre at the start of World War One.

My report on the conference appeared in Fortean Times, see here.

Interview on Louise Hulland’s BBC Radio Suffolk/Norfolk/Cambs. show, 19/10/23

I appeared in an interview on Louise Hulland’s BBC Radio Suffolk/BBC Radio Norfolk/BBC Radio Cambridgeshire afternoon show on 19 October 2023. I come in around 18.22 on this audio clip.

You can hear it on BBC iPlayer until 19 November 2023 (UK only). I was speaking about my (then) forthcoming book launch on 22 October in Dunwich.

Louise described me as “a really interesting guy” and ended our conversation by offering to become my assistant on big cat investigations. (That last bit sadly didn’t make the radio edit.)

Dunwich author pens book, Mystery Animals of Suffolk… (Suffolk News 07 10 23)

“Dunwich author pens book, Mystery Animals of Suffolk, which features big cat sightings in Bury St Edmunds and Wortham, near Diss”, article by Tamika Green in Suffolk News 07 October 2023. Linked from the article title above. (Suffolk News is the newswire website of Iliffe Publishing’s Suffolk newspaper titles, which include Bury Free Press.)

It comes with a warning this “this article contains images that some readers may find upsetting”.

The photo of the author from the article is wrongly attributed to Matt Salusbury, it is in fact © Jane Inglesfield, I am on it.

Local event to launch Mystery Animals of Suffolk, Dunwich, Sunday 22 October 2023

There is a local event to launch the recently published book Mystery Animals of Suffolk – including an account of over 150 mystery big cat sightings by Dunwich resident Matt Salusbury

On Sunday 22 October, 2pm-4.30 pm (last admission) at The Reading Room, St James’s Street, Dunwich, Suffolk IP17 3DT (behind Dunwich Museum).

Drinks and nibbles served. Meet the author. His large map showing big cat sightings across Suffolk will be on display.

Signed copies of Mystery Animals of Suffolk will be available to buy at a discount on the day. (Dunwich Museum nextdoor is open until 4.30 on that day, one of the last chances to visit it before it closes down for the winter at the end of October.)

Big cat witnesses and sceptics welcome! (Testimony of Suffolk Shuck sightings in the 1970s also accepted.)

 This is a hyper-local “soft launch”. A bigger event in Ipswich – accessible by public transport – is expected in early 2024. For further details get on the mailing list mysteryanimalsofsuffolk@gn.apc.org.

“Big cat investigator says Suffolk sightings are credible” – East Anglian Daily Times

The East Anglian Daily Times newspaper of 25 September 2023 has an interview with me, talking about Mystery Animals of Suffolk. I am told it will appear in print in the Monday 26 September edition.

Within hours of the article being published online, I had received two more reports of big cat sightings in Suffolk.

The first was a historical report of a sighting of a puma seen  in car headlights near Heveningham one night back in 2011.

The second report was a “muscly” black big cat slightly bigger than a German shepherd dog and with a “swishing” tail. The witness watched it for a minute as it moved slowly towards a stream – the River Fromus as it runs through the North end of Saxmundham, close to the A12 on 9 September 2023.

 

Distributor for Mystery Animals of Suffolk

Bittern Books, Norwich

Bittern Books, NorwichThe book Mystery Animals of Suffolk now has a distributor.

Bittern Books of Norwich will be getting the book into bookshops, museum gift shops and other outlets across East Anglia, including East Anglian branches of Waterstones, as well as getting it listed on Amazon shortly and available via their website.

Meanwhile, contact me on mysteryanimalsofsuffolk@gn.apc.org if you would like to buy a copy. The book’s already on sale at Dunwich Museum, Aldeburgh Bookshop, The Halesworth Bookshop and The Chocolate Box, Bungay.

 

Interview on BBC Radio Suffolk

There was an interview with Matt Salusbury, author of the book Mystery Animals of Suffolk on BBC Radio Suffolk’s “Steph Mack sits on the Johnnie Wright show” on 23 August.

The interview starts around 25.25 (25 minutes, 25 seconds in.) Link available ‘till 21 Sept, UK only. (The answer to “guess the village” immediately before I’m on is Kirton.) 

The link to the interview is on BBC Sounds, you may have to register (for free in the UK) and log in. For copyright reasons, the link is available until 21 September only, in the UK only. The link is here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0g43bx5