Original headline: `Big cat' alert after sighting
A Willersey man says he saw a big cat the size of a German Shepherd dog prowling just yards from a busy roadside garage.
Phil Halling, aged 44, spotted the animal next to the Trooper's Lodge filling station the A44 near Moreton.
It was dark brown with pointed ears and a long tail, and Phil declared: "What I saw was distinctly feline - I saw a large cat, there's no two ways about it."
Phil spotted the animal at 6.45pm on Tuesday. It was walking through a field to his left as he was travelling along Five Mile Drive towards his home. He said it was just a matter of yards from the road and only 40 feet from the back of the garage.
"What surprised me was how close it was to the garage - it had no fear of being close to people are. One of these days it could be one of my kids who comes face to face with one of these animals."
Colin Northcott, Deputy warden at West Midlands Safari Park, said he regularly received reports of big cats in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire.
"This is an unusual sighting because they are usually described as black with rounded ears. Having said that, they can appear brown in daylight and the ears do look pointed in profile - but I would say I was stumped on how to identify this animal. On the description I have had so far, I would be inclined to say it sounds like a puma or a mountain lion."
