The Fintona Lynx: RUC Marksmen Shoot a Collared Big Cat in County Tyrone

Northern Ireland, the mid-1990s. Britain's Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976 did not apply here. Importing or keeping lions, tigers, pumas or wolves was not restricted. Around October 1995, a farmer in County Fermanagh had shot an Arctic wolf. Four months later, the reports began in County Tyrone.

Farmers around Fintona described a "lion cub" in the countryside. Others spoke of "a wild cat or a lynx." The Press and Journal reported that police believed it was "a young lion." Fortean Times recorded a lion cub seen twice, "prowling close to sheep in Fintona." The sightings went on for about five days. For two of them, the RUC was unsure whether it was hunting "a lion or a big cat."

Saturday, 17 February 1996. At about 2 p.m., the RUC shot a wild cat. Officers described it as an exceptionally large feral or untamed cat.

About ten hours later, near midnight, police marksmen killed a second animal in a field on Garvallagh Road. This one wore a black collar. Somebody had owned it. The Irish Times called it an "African caracal lynx." The Press and Journal called it "a WILD African Lynx."

Inspector Norman McKee said there was "no immediate threat to the public." A tranquilliser dart, police said, would have meant getting very close to the animal. Zoo animal experts were consulted before the decision to shoot. Two keepers of wild animals at Seskinore both said they had not lost a cat.

The collar pointed to an escaped or released exotic pet. Press reports said it was believed to have come from a private collection. By 19 February, police had not traced the owner. The RUC wildlife liaison officer reportedly called for a law on wild cat ownership and for microchips in such pets. That law came eventually, as the Dangerous Wild Animals (Northern Ireland) Order 2004, in force from 28 December 2006.

Even the date became tangled. Fortean Times gives 17 February. The USPCA and the British Big Cats Society give 18 February. The Irish Times timeline places the kill around midnight, between the two.

Caracal or lynx. Nobody has fully agreed. Wikipedia describes the animal as "reportedly a caracal," while a PSNI record calls it a lynx. On the Scottish Big Cats website, which carried a photograph of the carcass, Chris Smith wrote that "the short tail suggests a lynx or bobcat." Commenters thought the ears were "way too small" for a caracal and the colour very light, though perhaps a trick of exposure, and one suggested a "Siberian Lynx," while a 2008 forum post called it a Eurasian lynx.

The fate of the body is just as uncertain. The British Big Cats Society says it was supposedly stuffed and placed in the RUC museum. Another claim puts it in the freezer of a museum in Belfast.

For big cat researchers, Fintona is rare. Not a blurry photograph or a footprint, but a body. The case was written up in Fortean Times and in Animals and Men, the newsletter of the Centre for Fortean Zoology. Years later, David Wilson of the USPCA called it "the only case where a cat was ever caught in Northern Ireland." It sits in the record beside the Devon lynx of 1903, Felicity the puma of 1980 and the Beast of Barnet lynx caught in Cricklewood in 2001.