Winnie, the Veluwe Puma

Summer 2005. The Veluwe, in the Dutch province of Gelderland. The slow news season the Dutch call komkommertijd.

Early June. Calls reached the police from around the Simon Stevinkazerne army barracks, Ede, Harskamp and Wekerom, most of them near the Ginkelse Heide. People said they had seen a puma. Then came tracks near Harskamp. On 14 June the story went national.

Witnesses described a greyish-brown cat, just over a metre long. Mostly active at night. Covering large distances. A clearly mauled roe deer was found. A police spokesperson refused to say exactly where the animal had been seen, and warned that the public underestimated the danger of a predator on the loose.

15 June. About 50 people from the Royal Marechaussee, the Mobile Unit and some game wardens searched between Ede, Wekerom, Bennekom and Harskamp, with off-road vehicles and a helicopter. A large part of the Ginkelse Heide was closed so the animal could be shot safely. Experts called it too fast and too smart to catch easily.

They found nothing. On 16 June the hunt was called off. Ecologist Harm Piek doubted that shooting was the only option. The mayor of Ede brought in Stichting Pantera, a big-cat rescue group, to take the animal alive. Ouwehands Dierenpark in Rhenen offered it a home.

18 June. North of the A12, near Apeldoorn, a forest ranger saw the cat walking with a hare in its mouth. On 23 June Pantera released photos from a field near Loenen. On screen the animal was hardly more than a dark smudge in the greenery. Some image experts said the pictures were manipulated. The pixel structure was wrong. The puma cast no shadow. Director A. van der Valk insisted they were genuine. A video followed on 28 June. No owner had reported a missing animal. No zoo had lost one.

Monday 19 September, around 15:00. A pasture on the Hulhorstweg in Beekbergen. Wildlife photographer Otto Faulhaber, from Arnhem, watched a cat from about 150 metres. It caught a mole or mouse. Then it played with an ordinary house cat. Faulhaber took a series of sharp photos. The animal stood 30 to 40 cm high and 60 cm long, roughly 1.5 times the size of a house cat.

Field biologist Gerrit Jansen judged it most likely a cross between a European wildcat and a feral house cat. Marc Damen of Burgers' Zoo said there was no evidence at all of pumas on the Veluwe. Then Beekbergen resident P. J. Houmes spoke up. The cat in the picture, he said, was his house cat, Max. Beekbergen lies about 25 km from Ede and Harskamp. Nothing shows it was the animal the June witnesses saw.

Following folklorist Theo Meder of the Meertens Institute, the case is filed as an urban legend. One of the komkommerdieren, the summer beasts. A hype. A futile police hunt. An animal that vanishes and turns up years later somewhere else. Meder pairs it with the Waasland wolf. It belongs to the same family as the Beast of Exmoor.

In December 2007 Apeldoorn gained a steel sculpture by Maarten de Reus, Kooi-met-geen-poema-er-in. A cage with no puma in it. Locals call it De Poema.