A British reader recalls his sighting of, what he believes was, an African wild dog while at a Scout camp in Hertfordshire in the summer of 2012.
I received the following account:
"Cheers, Lon. I thought that I'd write to you for your opinion. I'm from the UK and there are absolutely wild animals roaming the countryside which should not be there. I too know this from my own experience.
In the summer of 2012, I attended a Scouts summer camp in Hertfordshire. I spent a lot of time that week going off into the woods on my own and generally just exploring. One day I crossed over a stream and came into a clearing, where I saw what at first glance appeared to be a fox (not an uncommon sight in urban areas, let alone the countryside) but I quickly realised looked like no fox I'd ever seen before.
It was a tan colour with black mottled patches and very round ears. I'm 99% certain it was an African wild dog. I approached it, which to be honest was a risky thing to do but it just ran off and I never saw it again.
I got a great look at it in that clearing, and it's pretty much burned into my brain. My Scout leader didn't believe me when I returned to the camping spot. Interestingly the campsite was fairly close to Paradise Wildlife Park which does have an African wild dog enclosure, but I've never been able to find any reports of escapes that correspond to the timeframe.
I've been fascinated by this sort of thing ever since, and I'd really love to know what else is out there where it generally shouldn't be. I pretty much fully buy into the whole "British big cats" thing now. On that note, my parents swear an abnormally large cat with odd facial features crossed through our garden (London area) last summer. According to them, it leaped across the deck further than most of the neighbourhood house cats tend to do. Very curious indeed." Y
NOTE: African wild dog sightings in the UK are a new one to me. Possibly an escaped animal, though, curiously, there was no report. Lon
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