It will be available to buy via this website shortly afterwards.
Review copies are going out to media outlets.
A book launch at a venue in Ipswich is expected in the autumn. Watch this space for developments – email mysteryanimalsofsuffolk@gn.apc.org to get on the mailing list, or fill in the “subscribe” form below:
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Big cat investigators can gather much information on British big cats in Britain through the Freedom of Information Act, (FOIA, pronounced “foyer”,) which obliges public bodies and government agencies including local authorities to disclose information requested by citizens. Making FOIA requests is certainly easier than getting down on your hands and knees looking for big cat field signs in the wilderness and trying to scoop possible big cat poo into a bag for DNA analysis!
Some of the bodies that hold useful data on big cats include police forces – their police logs document calls from the public reporting big cat sightings to them – local authorities – they enforce Dangerous Wild Animals Act licences needed by people who keep big cats in captivity – and nature management agencies such as the Forestry Commission, English Nature and the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Authority.
I have been making FOIA requests about big cats in Suffolk (and East Anglia) for the past six years. Relevant disclosures under FOIA will be published here. (In some cases, even though the information is “free”, it remains Crown copyright of the body that has it, which takes time to clear.)
For now, the link below will take you to a recent FOIA disclosure on a male bobcat that escaped from captivity in West Suffolk in March 2020. This bobcat was then shot and injured, then rescued by the RSPCA and rehomed. The disclosure reveals that someone in West Suffolk was at the time keeping half a dozen big cats which were all transferred to the ownership of another individual or organisation at around that time:
If you are interested in collaborating with me on making more FOIA requests in this area, or on possible training sessions on FOIA requests for big cat investigators, please get in touch.
Big cat investigators spend a lot of time out in the wild with trail cameras and the like, but we can get a fairly good idea of what’s happening by way of British big cat activity via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, to the police and to local councils, for example. This FOIA disclosure involves a escaped male bobcat shot and injured in Suffolk, after he was apparently rescued by the RSPCA who passed him on to a rescue centre where he was rehomed.
FOIA disclosures in response to my requests have uncovered the circumstances of the escape. They also hint at a former owner of multiple big cats somewhere in West Suffolk transferring a large number of “Dangerous Wild Animals” out of their ownership in the course of 2020.
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