The Beast of Bodmin Moor

From the collection of

The Box
Established in 1992, the South West Film & Television Archive collection spans from 1893 to the present day containing more than 250,000 items. Formed from a variety of depositors, including broadcast news and programmes material from the Westward and TSW archive. In 2018 the archive collection transferred to The Box in Plymouth.

The Beast of Bodmin Moor


A farmer tells all about some wild goings-on

Bodmin Moor is a beautiful but creepy place to be at night and yet another sighting of the Beast of Bodmin Moor fuels speculation into why one of Britain's most feared animals has never been caught. Despite little to no physical proof of its existence and declared a phantom by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, every now and then a story of the wild cat on the prowl killing livestock rears it ugly head (and gets eaten).

Some believe the beast to be a large black panther thought to have been imported as a fashionable tropical pet in the seventies and released into the Cornish wild when it became too big to handle. Others question whether an animal has escaped from a nearby zoo. A young boy walking beside the River Fowey in 1995 found a skull of a leopard and The Natural History Museum in London verified its authenticity but the skull had been imported into the UK as part of a leopard skin rug – with head attached or in this case detached.


Tags