Original headline: Man terrified by big cat sighting in wood
The most vivid and terrifying big cat sighting so far in the Observer area left a forestry worker fearing for his life while in Quendon Wood on Monday.
After hearing a strange noise while felling trees, the 35-year-old turned off his chain saw and it was then that he heard the creature roar and saw it ahead of him in the trees.
"I cannot get across how terrified I was. As I heard what can only be described as a roar, a big chill ran up my spine. I literally froze and thought 'Oh no, I've turned my saw off now, that's my only defence'."
The worker from Stansted, who wishes to remain anonymous, had been felling trees all morning and said he had no choice, but to make a run for it across 30 or so fallen trunks to reach the safety of his harvesting machine cab, turning his saw back on as he did so.
"The cat was about 50ft (15m) away and I looked directly at it. It was about 3-4ft (1m) tall and moving through the trees. It was huge and I really did fear for my life."
Having been working in part of Quendon Wood, just off the B1383, by himself, the forester tried to phone his colleague on another part of the site, but was unable to get through.
He then tried the manager of Quendon Park, the estate to which the woods belong, who fetched help and his colleague arrived to pick him up about half an hour later.
The man, who works for a private contractor, returned to the woods on Tuesday with his colleagues to investigate his sighting. They found an oak tree covered in large scratch marks reaching 4ft (1m) up the trunk and paw prints in the earth.
"I'll quite happily take a photographer up there," he invited the Observer, "but only if we take a shotgun with us."
With another four to five months of clearance work still to do in the woods, he said they now worked in pairs, keeping an eye out for the big cat, which he described as brown coloured and "almost certainly" a puma.
He added: "I think that with people regularly walking in that area, something needs to be done and the public need to be aware there is something in that wood that could quite possibly kill them."
The sighting was reported to Dunmow police, but wildlife officer Barry Kaufmann-Wright was unavailable for comment yesterday.
