‘Big black cat’ seen on Hatfield to St Albans cycle track today

A jogger claims he saw a panther in the Alban Way (file photo). Picture: Getty images/iStockphoto Getty Images/iStockphoto

Another mysterious big black cat has been spotted in Hertfordshire today.

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A jogger has reported spotting “a big black cat” along the Alban Way in St Albans.

Alistair Divall, of Old London Road, saw what he believed to be a panther while he was out jogging, at around 9.30am.

He said: “It was about 10 or 15 feet in front of me, moving slowly, and then it turned and looked at me briefly.

“It disappeared completely and there were people down at the bottom with their dogs.”

Alistair, who is employed as a TV presenter and broadcaster, has worked at Paradise Wildlife Park, where he said he learned more about big cats.

He said: “That’s definitely what I saw and I am completely sane. I can tell the difference between a cat and this big cat.

“Funnily enough I wasn’t scared.

“It didn’t threaten me in the slightest.

“It was just to say ‘Oh hello, you’re there. I am gone now’ and it loped off.

“They’re very clever because they can disappear and they can be sitting looking at you and you won’t be able to see them.

“I have done some work at Paradise Wildlife Park and you learn some things by doing that.

“They don’t tend to attack humans until they’re being attacked themselves.

“I am definitely pleased I have seen it to be honest.”

Multiple eyewitnesses claim to have seen big cats in St Albans, Welwyn Hatfield and the surrounding areas,

A woman said she saw a big, cream-coloured cat off Hatfield Road last month, and in January two Oaklands College staff members saw “a large, sandy-coloured cat”.

Four years ago scratch marks were found on a tree after a “huge animal” was seen near Welwyn, and a big black cat was spotted near Luton Airport last year.

In March 2017, in Wheathampstead, a driver thought he saw a panther bounding through fields, and a dog-walker recently found the mutilated corpse of a muntjac deer nearby.