La Cala cougar develops a taste for pata negra

May 2, 2008  •  Andalucia  •  1 Comments

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THE La Cala cougar is clearly not scared of travelling for a meal.

The celebrated wild cat that was first spotted in La Cala a year ago has apparently turned up in Campillos.

As reported by the Olive Press, he has been SLOWLY moving inland, and now the “panther-like” feline has been accused of killing over a dozen Iberican pigs in a hilly area, known as El Canuelo.

The pig farmer told the Olive Press that the animal had been seen by a number of his staff.

“He’s black with shiny hair and is very agile and moves quickly,” explained Ramon Garcia Valdecasas, adding that in the same attack he had also injured nine other animals.

“They were very significantly injured, with huge gashes to skin,” he said.

The farmer, who has over 300 of the so-called ‘Pato Negra’ pigs on his farm, has denounced the attack to the Guardia Civil.

He revealed how a couple of his employees had seen the animal a week after the incident in early April. “But it fled after they shouted at it,” he said.

He has now applied to Campillos town hall to shoot the animal. “It is very dangerous to have a large wild cat like this roaming around.”

Seprona, the Guardia Civil’s wildlife arm, insist the attack was more likely to have been by a pack of wild dogs.

The theory is based on the fact that the animals were killed without being eaten, a classic sign of an attack by dogs.

The town hall has also been taking the attack seriously.

Mayor Jesus Galeote organised a hunt with a number of councillors some days after the attack.

As we reported in the Olive Press, he was last spotted with a mate in the hills near Monda.

Stable owner Malcolm Platt said: “There were two of them and they were four or five times larger than a normal cat.”

He had previously been seen above Alhaurin in October and before that a number of readers told us he had been seen in the Majadilla del Muerto estate above La Cala and further along near Mijas.

British oil worker Gary Jacks told us how he had seen the cat three times near his home at the foot of the Sierra Gorda near Alhaurin.

“He was big and very scary. bigger than our Great Dane with a long black tail.”

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