THE YEAR 2025 was another active one for bigcatsofsuffolk.com, with the months of May and August particularly busy. There seems to have been something of a wave of Suffolk big cat reports around that time.
There were 24 reports of sightings of big cats in the county in the year 2025.
Mostly melanistic leopards again
This year’s reported big cats were overwhelmingly melanistic leopards – 18 big cats reported are from their description melanistic leopards. A long tail with a blunt end that curved up was described in many of these reports. More than one report mentioned small, rounded ears. There were two reported possible pumas in this year, both in West Suffolk, also one “tabby cat” with a stubby tail that could have been a lynx, and three reports of “a big cat” with no further detail. There were some interesting photos of a possible big cat taken this year in a village near Eye, as well as some interesting video footage of a possible big cat filmed in a field in Darsham.
These indeterminate big cats included a “big cat” (no further details) reported at Stowmarket football club’s ground on 14 April 2025, and a 2025 report by an informant of being told in around 2015 by a friend in the Forestry Commission that there were “cats” in Rendlesham Forest. (There were numerous local sightings at that time.)
A new phenomenon involves dog-walkers contacting me to check whether there have been any big cat sightings in the area where they take their dogs for a walk is free of big cats. Weirdly, I’ve had several people contact me this year report a big cat sighting without leaving any contact details which has never happened before.
Hotspots – around the Deben and the A12, Bury and the Waveney
The busiest regions of the county of Suffolk for big cat activity this past year has been around the Deben, the Woodbridge area, and in a corridor around the A12 from Carlton Woods (near Saxmundham) to Darsham and Bramfield (west of the A12). The Norfolk border along the River Waveney has also been busy, as it has been on and off for many years. Bury St Edmunds and environs has seen a few sightings in 2025, although not as busy as in 2024. The normally busy Suffolk-Cambridgeshire border has been strangely quiet of late in terms of big cat activity.
See below for earlier maps and updates on Suffolk big cat sightings for the previous few years.
Yes, photos and video!
There was one recent set of photos of a possible big cat, taken in a village near Eye, in April 2025. The proximity of the location to Ed Sheeran’s estate in Dennington (not all that near!) resulted in the story making the front page of the Daily Star. It also made the Mail and got me a live interview on Channel 5 News. There was also a claim made on Mysterious Cats in Suffolk Facebook group that there had been four local sightings of big cats around Eye up to May 2025, including two cubs and a mother.
There was in addition some video of an animal thought to be a big cat in a field in Darsham. I hope to return to the location and do some measuring of distances. Thanks to Neil Holloway for the footage.
Historical reports from way back when
I also received several “historical reports” in 2025 – witnesses contacting me about sightings they had experienced years ago, in some cases decades ago. In some recent years, around half of all the reports I get are “historical reports”, although not this year – most reports in 2025 came in the day after the encounter happened, in two cases the report came in the same day as the sighting. Witnesses are sending in reports very soon after their encounters – one arrived just 45 minutes after it happened.
Most encounters are reported as happening when the witness was driving at night, with the big cat seen in their headlights, or while walking their dogs early in the morning. Since bigcatsofsuffolk.com was set up in 2023, more witnesses are female, breaking a trend since records began of witnesses being overwhelmingly male. 2025 is the first year in which a narrow majority of witnesses are female.
One witness recently described to me a sighting from the first Suffolk big cat wave of 1996-1997. They were a school student at the time, on the bus to school. Between the Seven Hills roundabout and the Foxhall Road roundabout (they’re minutes away from each other by car) they saw “a black animal moving in the field, and thinking it was a large dog because of the size, but it was the shape and movements of a cat.”
The 1997-1977 wave of Suffolk big cat sightings, the biggest such wave, saw numerous sightings around Ipswich (particularly around the Foxhall Road area) and South Suffolk. Most sightings involved a black big cat. The wave of sightings was well documented by the Ipswich-based Evening Star in particular. That newspaper gave a name to the animal at the centre of the sightings, “Claws”, and offered a £250 reward for its photo, still unclaimed. (It’s all in Mystery Animals of Suffolk.) It’s fascinating to hear an account in 2025 from a witness to a big cat all those years ago, back when they were still at school.
Another “historic sighting” that came to light in 2025 was the “Ling lioness,” a puma seen at least once in Wortham Ling, a nature reserve on the Norfolk-Suffolk border. My thanks to Gill Thornton and to Gordon Rutter of the Edinburgh Fortean Society who helped track this down. There’s more on the Ling lioness here. There were apparently persistent reports about a big cat in the area going back to the late 1980s, confirmed by an informant who went to school locally at the time. A farmer nearby reported finding big cat footprints.
Yet another witness who contacted me in 2025 recalled seeing in 2015, so a decade previously, “something big and dark” seen in woods in Haughley, with footprints found nearby.
In late March I received a historical report of a “grey lynx-like wildcat” seen in bushes illuminated by a security light by a witness looking out of a window of a house in Walberswick on night in “around 2007.” They described how the animal “opened its mouth aggressively” as if hissing at the witness.
One final historical report: in March 2025 I received testimony of a man fishing at Shingle Street – a beach on the Bawdsey Peninsula – sometime before 2017. The man saw that a black big cat was “watching” him from a distance. He slowly “backed away” to his car nearby.
Most reports received in 2025, though, were contemporary reports, often reporting sightings that had happened on the same day. I was contacted by a gamekeeper who’d had multiple sightings of a muscular, shiny black big cat with a long, turned up tail that he described as a “black jaguar” on his estate. We agreed to be vague about the location, we decided on “near Helmingham Hall” as a description. My informant has also found multiple kill signs over the years – a goose, a Chinese water deer and a hare – all showing signs of predation by a big carnivore. (See her from some other recent possible big cat kill signs.) He monitors rabbit and deer populations locally as part of his job, he says the rabbits and deer have “gone” immediately after a sighting of the big cat.
A sudden drop in rabbit population after a big cat sighting was a phenomenon also mentioned by a witness who very briefly saw a “dark or black” big cat with a long tail a Seckford near Woodbridge, by the golf course in June 2023, reported in 2025. This witness also monitors the usually abundant rabbit population as part of their job. It crashed after their sighting. The carcass of a muntjac deer showing signs of predation by something big was found shortly afterwards.
A deerstalker reports “multiple” sightings in the area around Otley, near Ipswich, up to March 2025. Another informant from Otley reports finding the body of a hare “cached” under a log locally. In the middle of the night of 4 April 2025, someone “out lamping” at night witnessed a black big cat running across a field near Kenton (near the Aspall cider orchard,) seen in the beam of a headlamp.
In mid-March of 2025 I was contacted by an informant who told me he’d been called out very early in the morning after a savage attack on a sheep “near Bury”. (They had to be vague about the location.) The sheep died from its considerable wounds, it was still alive when my witness arrived and recorded a short video, which I’ve seen.
It had been a very messy attack on the sheep, though, unlike the usual precision strike and “clean” kill usually inflicted by a big cat. So the witness doesn’t rule out an attack by a dog rather than a mystery large feline.
I received three reports from outside Suffolk but still in East Anglia. One was from not far from the Suffolk border at Shelton Street, Norfolk. Another sighting was from further north in Norfolk on the A47 Acle Straight road that goes east to Acle from Great Yarmouth on the coas, finally in Essex at Howe Street near Chelmsford, on the B1008 Essex to Braintree road, a courier in a truck got a good look at a “jet black… majestic looking… quite lean” big cat siting in a ditch by the side of the road.
Sightings from South Suffolk are rare. From Chilton near Sudbury came a report of “something I can’t explain” seen in a field, with a photo that – like many I receive – was just a dark blur form which I couldn’t conclude anything. The witness also reported the corpse of a fox predated on by something had been found in the village at around that time, while a neighbour’s dog had been savagely attacked by something. The dog was out of sight for 30 seconds, it was found with multiple puncture marks to the chest and abdomen and left with a broken leg requiring six metal plates to repair.
There are, however, many reports of attacks on dogs by muntjac deer, who leave puncture marks with their little fangs. I’ve heard more anecdotal evidence of such attacks in Suffolk, they seem to be on the increase. More study is needed into this phenomenon before we can rule out a muntjac attack in this case, rather than a big cat. A Shootinguk correspondent now based in Suffolk notes that many male muntjac have broken fangs, suggesting that they ‘ve used them in combat, and asserts that they know of several attacks by muntjac on gun dogs, including fatal attacks. There are even reports of muntjacs attacking people elsewhere in East Anglia. Please pass on to me any information on muntjac attacks on dogs.
From Pentlow, not far from Chilton, came a report in May 2025 of a “black or dark cat the size of a medium or large dog”, three feet (1m) head to rump, with a tail that was thick and curved at the end and “smallish ears”. It was seen walking slowly across a country road for ten seconds by a mother and son driving past.
Possible pumas
In the “possible puma” department, there were two sightings of possible pumas from West Suffolk in the year 2025. On the night of 1 May 2025, at Morton Hall on the edge of Bury St Edmunds, a “light coloured” big cat with a long, thickish tail, big feet… about the size of a deer, but more plump with large ears” was seen from the witness’s windows for two minutes as it “walked slowly.” At Gedding, near Bradfield Woods, a witness driving in the dark at 1am on 12 August 2025 saw a “tan coloured… massive, massive cat” with a “massive long tail” run across the road ten feet ahead of them.
Really huge feral cats?
One report featured something that sounded like a very big feral or domestic cat. The witness described it as having “pointed ears” and being 60cm long – big for a feral cat or domestic cat, but not record-breakingly big. It was seen for a few minutes just before midday on 14 April 2025 at Bramfield (between Darsham and Halesworth) and described as “large, fully black cat… investigating something around a tree”, and “unconcerned about cars” which could also suggest a larger feral or domestic cat.
In recent years there has been a cluster of sightings and kill signs around the Wickham Market area (I have been asked to be vague here). This continued in 2025, with a witness reporting a 2020 encounter while walking their dog in the village of Easton very early one morning. The animal was 200 yards away on a footpath, it was bigger than a Labrador, “sitting there, staring at me”. It turned sideways so that the witness could see it in profile, it had “rounded ears” and a tail that was “really long” sticking out at the back, curling.” The animal “slunk off.” I now have a small network of informants in the area, one of whom informed me that a black big cat was seen in a tree at night near Hacheston on the night of 19 August 2025.
Also possibly in the “huge feral or domestic cat” department was the animal described as “similar to a house cat but way bigger” – twice the size of a house cat and black in colour, which briefly followed a cyclist on the 425-mile Further Equinox East cycle race at night on 28 September 2025.
The cyclist was following their GPS route of the race on their phone on their handlebars in total darkness at the time, with only a cycle light to illuminate the road ahead of them, so they had no idea where they were other than that it was somewhere between Diss (just over the Norfolk border) and Wangford, near Southwold, quite a long way east of Diss.) The witness also reported that another cyclist on the same race had encountered a similar animal on the previous night, although his report didn’t say where. I contacted the Further Equinox race organisers and also DotWatcher who track these races and provide commentary, neither of them had heard any reports of big cats on the route. The route of the race is here.
The witness described the animal as briefly “playfully” following them “at speed” (about 16mph) on the route before “disappearing” which is behaviour more like a feral or domestic cat than a melanistic leopard or wildcat.
Other big cat sightings reported in 2025 include a “large black panther-like creature” seen by two witnesses driving into Mendlesham back in 2017, just south of the village on the road going south to Stowupland. It “crossed the road in front of our car” before “it disappeared into a ditch and thick foliage.” It “had a long tail that curved up at the end”, so possibly another black leopard.
Two sightings 25 miles and 90 minutes apart
A husband and wife travelling in a car on the A1120 just West of Badingham at around 6.30pm on 23 March 2025 reported a “black big cat running very fast”, crossing the road 50m ahead of them. They only saw it for a couple of seconds, just long enough to note “its size and speed of running, and its way of running like a cat… cat-like fast running.” It was the “size of a large dog.”
Just an hour and a half later on the same day at The Street in Belstead, southeast of Ipswich and near Jimmy’s Farm and Wildlife Park, another witness driving in “very dark and windy conditions” saw a big cat from 15 metres away for a few seconds. It was black with “a long black tail, 5ft long… agile”, seen for a couple of seconds 15m away. They reported it to me 45 minutes later, which is the shortest interval between a sighting and a report that I’ve ever had.
Belstead is around 25 miles due southwest of Badingham, there’s no way a black leopard or indeed any animal could cross that distance in just 45 minutes, so these two sightings such a short space of time apart strongly suggest there is more than one big cat out there in Suffolk.
Very early in the morning of 10 May 2025, a driver passing through the village of Ingham – near Bury St Edmunds and on the A138 – saw from the cab of their lorry “the hindquarters and tail of a black big cat slowly slinking away into a hedge.” The witness described it as “at least three feet long, black, smooth fur, tail almost curled up at the end”. I’ve heard several reports of sightings by lorry or truck drivers over the years – their cabs are a lot higher up than the driving seats of cars, which means lorry drivers can see further and occasionally see big cats behind hedges or in ditches that are concealed from most drivers.
From Tostock came a very brief report of a “panther” with a long thick tail, seen on 8 August 2025, “sniffing around the bushes”, the witness’s dog gave chase. No further details were supplied.
There was one sighting of a possible lynx or bobcat this year – from Hadleigh on 31 August. The witness got a good look at the animal for five minutes from 12 feet away. They described a “tabby” cat, larger and stockier than a domestic cat with a stubby tail”. “It was just sitting there then it jogged away into a bush”.
Normally I expect an increase in sightings come autumn – the September 2024 was particularly busy for big cat reports, for example. Big cat investigators around the UK generally note an uptick in big cat sightings in the autumn. It is thought that this is because there’s less foliage for big cats to hide in during the autumn, and that there’s less abundant wildlife around so big cats have to work harder to find food, so are more likely to show themselves. After a moderately busy late Spring and summer, though, there was nothing like the expected autumnal wave of big cat sightings in 2025. Autumn was quiet. This could be because the weather has been so mild that the foliage stayed abundant right up until mid-November and beyond, so the big cats could stay hidden.
October 2025 saw a relatively urban sighting that lasted “30 to 60 seconds”, right in the middle of the busy Martlesham Heath trading estate near Ipswich, seen in headlights at around 10pm. According to the witness, “it was standing, slightly crouched at the side of the road, as if it had just come out of the shrubs and bushes. I saw its green eyes first as they reflected the car headlights, and I looked expecting to see a fox or muntjac, but saw a large black cat. As the car went past it, it turned and slunk into the bushes… About the size of an adult Labrador dog… Black – I think rounded ears.” The witness noted that they regularly see muntjac round there.
From Haddon Approach near Haddon Hall, on the shore of the River Deben, on east bank of the river opposite the town of Woodbridge on the west bank, comes a sighting of 8 November 2025, reported on the same day. The animal, seen for 10 seconds from roughly ten yards away, “must have heard us coming and was just slinking into cover up a sloping branch.” It was “jet black” with a “strong muscular back end and cat tail” and “four times, possibly five times as big” as a domestic tomcat, “30 inches (77cm) or a bit bigger.” 77cm is big for a domestic cat but not record-breakingly so. Feral cats of that size (male and black, often long haired and found in forests) have turned up at Suffolk animal rescue centres. The cat made a “low crawl up into cover.”
A deerstalker reports “multiple” sightings in the area around Otley, near Ipswich, up to March 2025. Another informant from Otley reports finding the body of a hare “cached” under a log locally. In April of 2025, someone “out lamping” at night witnessed a black big cat running across a field near Kenton (near the Aspall cider orchard,) seen in the beam of a headlamp.
From Carlton Woods near Saxmundham (not to be confused with the better-known Carlton Marshes near Lowestoft), came a brief report of a black big cat very briefly glimpsed in April 2025. This followed a report of “the front end of a deer” briefly glimpsed “up a tree” in the same woods at the end of March, by a witness who said they’d return the following day to see if it was still there. I didn’t hear from them after that.
That concludes our round-up of big cat sightings in Suffolk in the year 2025. Any more 2025 sightings that are reported after I write at the end of November will have to wait till next year’s round-up. As I am no longer based in Suffolk it is becoming harder for me to keep track of big cat activity there. In the coming year I will be looking for people who live more locally to take over the admin of bigcatsofsuffolk.com.
I am pleased to say others are already taking on some of the work of monitoring big cats in the county. I have been able to put several groups of local witnesses (sometimes witnesses to multiple encounters) in contact with each other. These informal groups now exchange information on the latest sightings in their area. I am aware of two projects – at different ends of the county – recently started or starting up involving trail cams monitoring for big cats. One is already up and running and producing photos of wildlife – no big cats yet. Watch this space.
Meanwhile, you can support me on Ko-fi and Mystery Animals of Suffolk is on sale online via Bittern Books. See also a list of bookshops that stock the book. You can sign up for alerts, updates and events here. (Scroll down to the bottom of that page.)
My map of reports of big cat sightings in Suffolk from June 2024-February 2025 is here. My map of sightings of sightings in the county between October 2022 and June 2024 is here. See also my analysis of trends in sightings in Suffolk within that period. See also my map of sightings reported between 2017 and 2022. along with other maps. For data on big cat sightings and maps before October 2022 – going back all the way to around 1976 – you’ll have to buy Mystery Animals of Suffolk. Why June 2024 to February 2025 and why October 2022 and June 2024? These were the intervals between talks on the big cats of Suffolk, at which I provided updates.
In other out-of-place animals in Suffolk news, 2025 also saw a mini-wave of wallaby sightings in the county in August, in Ilkesthall St Andrew and not far away a few days later in Wissett.