Beast of Bodmin Moor: the leopard skull from the River Fowey

For years, people on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall had spoken of a beast. Black and panther-like. Puma-sized, three to five feet long, with white-yellow eyes. Livestock was being killed, and locals feared big cats might become established on the moor.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food asked ADAS to investigate. Charles Winson and Simon Baker studied the evidence. Their report was published on 19 July 1995. Its conclusion was blunt: "no verifiable evidence for the presence of a 'big cat' was found." It added that it could not prove a big cat was not present.

24 July 1995. Five days after the report. A boy was walking by the River Fowey, which runs down through Bodmin Moor to the southern coastline. On the bank lay a skull. It was about 4 inches long by 7 inches wide. The lower jaw was missing. Sharp, prominent canines remained. It was the skull of a big cat.

The skull went before the press. At a press conference it was displayed as a find that could help solve the mystery of the livestock-killing Beast of Bodmin Moor. A London Zoo expert called it genuine. The story travelled as far as American newspapers. For a few days, it looked like proof.

The skull was taken to the Natural History Museum in London. A team of entomologists and zoologists examined it. It was indeed a genuine skull from a young male leopard. But the details did not fit a cat prowling Cornwall.

The back of the skull had been cleanly cut off, in a way commonly used to mount the head on a rug. There were knife marks where flesh had been removed. It had only recently been in the water. And inside was an egg case laid by a tropical cockroach that could not possibly be found in Britain. The leopard had not died on the moor. Its head had come from an imported leopard-skin rug.

The conventional explanation is settled. A rug trophy head ended up in the river. How it got there is another matter. No source names a hoaxer, and nobody has shown it was planted. But the timing, five days after the official denial, is often noted.

The wider legend has its own theories. Animal trainer Mary Chipperfield allegedly released three pumas when her Plymouth zoo closed in 1978. Others point to pets freed after the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976, or to surviving native wildcats. The ADAS study found that a classic photo of the beast showed an animal only 30 cm tall at the shoulder, and that the livestock kills pointed to badgers, crows and foxes.

The Fowey skull became one of the best known episodes of the legend. It was covered by Fortean Times in 1995, and Brian Regal's Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia records that it was cut from a leopard skin rug. Researcher David Clarke returned to the government study in 2014. Clarke's account shows how little of the beast survived scrutiny. Yet sightings on and around the moor continued into the 2010s, part of the wider story of British big cats, alongside the Beast of Exmoor and the Surrey Puma.