Original headline: Tails of the unexpected
FEN tiger fever has hit the area after a farmer blamed a puma-like creature for killing one of her lambs last week.
The News reported how Diane Morris, from Cuckoo Hill Farm in Oakington, spotted the black cat and later found a dead lamb which had had one of its legs severed.
After the story appeared on Wednesday News readers have kept their eyes peeled for the creature and several told us of sightings.
In one dramatic sighting a woman claimed the cat had gone into her house.
But Kim Simmons, a director at Linton Zoo, says stories about the Fen Tiger are far fetched. She says zoo staff have never seen convincing proof of its existence.
She said: "We have never really had hard evidence there is a big cat on the loose, especially a puma because they are few and far between even in captivity.
"The story started in 1976 when licensing rules changed and it was illegal to have big cats without a licence and people said it had been let loose by someone. But most cats that have been in captivity like people's company and so the first thing they would do is walk up to somebody for food.
"There must have been more than one for it to perpetuate until 2003. The cats would be calling to each other and it is a very strange loud noise but nobody has ever heard that."
A supply teacher, who did not wish to be named, said she came what she believes could be the Fen Tiger in her Fen Ditton home.
After the first incident about two years ago the woman, in her 50s, has kept her cat flap locked, although she was disturbed again in December.
She said: "I opened the door on the chain and there was the monstrous cat. She was sitting there with her paws pounding away at the cat flap. It was black all over, like a lynx, with tufts on its ears. I was pretty confident I had seen a wild cat or the Fen Tiger."
Martin Hale, from Rampton, once spotted a cat-like creature from his house and says he found large paw prints in his three-acre garden on several occasions.
He said: "I'm certain it comes into my garden and has been doing so for some time. I have a walkway where grass doesn't grow and when it is muddy I look for prints.
"I have seen prints about the size of a clenched fist and about an inch and a half deep. I last saw them about 18 months ago. I am not an expert but they definitely weren't from any British wildlife.
"I no longer go through my wood at night. It's pitch dark down there and if something like that was going to attack you then you wouldn't know until the last moment."
On Wednesday Barbara Rijk from Fulbourn was driving from Cambridge when she spotted an oversize feline on the road.
She said: "It was amazing, about two or three times bigger than a domestic cat. It had a really thick black shiny coat and its head was small in proportion to its body."
In a nearby sighting Daniel Clover from Fulbourn was out shooting with his son near the Ida Darwin Hospital when they spotted what he describes as a black panther, four foot long and two feet high at the shoulders.
Nicola Liston, from Cambridge, was driving along the A10 with her aunt towards Ely two years ago when they spotted a large cat.
"It wasn't a dog or a normal cat," she said. "It was definitely some type of cat but I don't know if it was a panther."
Lorraine and Andy Thompsett contacted the News to say they had seen the cat in the Ely area. They were walking their dog on the Princess of Wales hospital site four years ago when they spotted a large cat which ran off under a portable cabin.
In a third Ely sighting Patricia Curry from Cambridge rang to say she spotted a large cat behind a hedge three weeks ago while driving up the A10 to Ely, at a roundabout on the junction with Angel Drove.
She said it was: "Bigger than an Alsatian; very low, very long, very big and very black."
Karen Hinkins from Great Wilbraham saw a cat-like animal the size of a small deer while driving towards Stow-cum-Quy. It ran across the road and disappeared into trees.
