A DURSLEY man has seen what he believed to be a pair of big cats hunting on the outskirts of the town.

The man was cycling to work in a morning roughly a month ago when he witnessed the pair apparently hunting a domestic cat.

He reported the sighting to Gloucestershire-based big cat expert Frank Tunbridge who said that he receives reports of sightings about once a fortnight.

“I’ve been following big cats for years,” he said. “They tend to be more commonly sighted the closer to winter it gets as they come out of wooded areas into the more urban areas in search of food.

“This man told his colleagues what he saw but they ridiculed him for it. The problem is that unless you see a big cat for yourself it’s hard to believe that they’re out there.”

In recent years Mr Tunbridge has received reports of sightings around the area including ones at Cam and Dursley station, Cam Peak and several in the Stinchcombe area.

He added: “This country and especially Gloucestershire is over run with deer and particularly common amongst these are muntjacs.

“There are obviously not large numbers of big cats in the area but there are some that I believe are descendants of animals released into the wild after the introduction of the 1976 Dangerous Animals Act.

“What we need to prove to everyone that big cats are living here is concrete evidence. We have some footage of a big cat in Thrupp but we need close-up photographs to make people believe.”

Mr Tunbridge, from Gloucester, has been interested in animals all of his life and for the past few decades has been recording sightings of big cats, not only in Gloucestershire but across the country.

He said that abandoned quarries across the Stroud Valleys and densely wooded areas were perfect places for them to live.

The man who reported the sightings wishes to remain anonymous.