Thomas Pennant on Wild Cats

There are a number of books from the late 18th to very early 19th centuries that refer tto wild cats and how they have only survived "for hundreds of years" by interbreeding with feral domestics. Thomas Pennant, thanks to his British Zoology , 1771, and writing about his travels and observations, is seen as THE pre-extinction rewference source.

Pennant  Manwood's Forest Laws, 39.

"THAT fierce animal the wild cat, is still met with in this forest. In the reign of Richard I. the abbot and convent of Peterborough had a charter for hunting in this place the hare, the fox, and the wild cat; which was confirmed to them, in 1253, by Henry III.9 By these charters, it appears the wild cat should be added to the beasts of forest, or of venerie; which the book of St. Albans, and old Sir Tristram, in his worthie Treatise of Hunting, confined to the hart, the hynde, the hare, the boare, and the wolfe: the hart and hind being separated, because the season of hunting them was different; yet they remain in species still the same. Beasts of the chace (which was an inferior sort of forest) were the buck, the doe, the fox, the martin, and the roe."

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Thomas Pennant described the English wildcat in the first volume of his British Zoology (1776 and reprinted in 1771 and 1818) as "the British tiger," highlighting its fierce nature and destructive power against poultry, lambs, and kids. He considered it the fiercest and most destructive beast in Britain, noting its strength and activity.

Pennant's Description of the Wildcat

Pennant referred to the wildcat as a "British tiger" due to its ferocity He described it as the "fiercest, and most destructive beast we have. Pennant observed that the wildcat "mak[es] dreadful havock among our poultry, lambs, and kids". He mentioned its strength, stating that if wounded, it would attack the person who injured it and could prove to be a "no despicable enemy"

 

Remember that the original wild cat was large -much larger than the claimed modern wild cat. It was hunted with packs of dogs and due to its size and ferocity cat hunting dogs were fitted with metal studded leather collars to prevent them being killed. Surviving remnants of the Old wild cat could wound and kill a man and this is where the ignorance of those involved in "big cat" groups as well as cryptozoology shows. This had to be an unknown felid or even an escaped exotic cat like a tiger -the tiger stripes and size stated made that clear. 

 

No. It was a wild cat and nothing else.

 

Hounds for hunting wild cats, which all the authors point out were being wiped out (they just didn't care unless it affected the 'sport'), were in demand because it took "courage" for a hound to take on a wild cat. Look at this advertisement from 1733 when the wiping out of the cats was in full swing

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  The fact that I more or less proved that wild cats of the New variety were being released into shooting territories to be hunted and shot in the 1920s-1930s shows that the only reason for hunting was sadistic 'fun'. In fact, a man who shot two wild cats in such a hunting territory said one was only wounded (he never bothered following it) and the other he just shot and threw onto a low hanging tree branch as he "paid no heed" to what it looked like and it goes on and on as the evidence of releases for 'fun killing' mounts across England up to the 1940s.

  Even with all the wildlife conservation and publicity there is still talk on shooting groups about wanting to "get one" (shoot one).

  Like the Old fox types everyone knew that they were being hunted to extinction but no one cared because it was their 'sport' and the loss of foxes and wild cats only concerned them because then what could they hunt??

  We lost the Old type foxes and wild cats in the 1860s and that was discussed in the 19th century. What we see now are hybrids of European wild cats being introduced in some attempt to appease consciences -a game keeper is not going to worry about shooting one ands they have in the past with the claim "I thought it was  feral domestic"

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  Also read 
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• https://terryhoopernaturalist.blogspot.com/2025/04/wild-cats-extinction-is-forever.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawMdKrlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFEUHVkaDYwTFl1cEJZOUMwAR71cYwJpnWvuQ6t-XClQa3wc1-lG-821xRZEWis6g3dIJ8VdLyXn32kEnrS3A_aem_RHraFACPUr7OYGK1zD_XOA