Never seen anything myself (and I live in far too urbanised a part of the country to do so) but it's very interesting, apparently it's known that there have been populations of some animals that would seem almost cryptid-like if you encountered them in this country that grew out of escaped zoo animals. There were wallabies in the Peak District, for instance.

If there were panthers wandering about Dartmoor I am certain we'd know for sure, though. I think we could plausibly support smaller wild cats like lynxes, but I think generally speaking they wouldn't find much suitable prey in the wild and would be forced into contact with humans, or just starve. They're good hunters but they're not as adaptable as something like a fox, or suited to a niche like a badger.

>>464570 Yeah all the wallabies died out in the Peak District in 2009. I know some war veteran just released them at some point but last sighting was 2009 and that was a cold winter in the Peaks with temperatures going below -20 so they are definetly extinct now.

I was on the fence about it for ages until I saw something myself. I spend a lot of time walking up and down hills, and on one of those walks I did indeed see a large, black, cat bounding through a field. The thing is I was twenty yards away and it was, and apart from a split second when my cro-magnon predator/prey instincts triggered, obviously a house cat. But, there was that moment, and it convinced me that other people who are less intelligent than I am have had the same experience, maybe at a greater distance, and ran with it. Let's remember that there's like one funny news story a year about a stuffed toy being mistaken for carnivorous megafauna.

The bone structure of a house cat and a panther are so similar it's not at all suprising that you could confuse one for the other. What I don't get is where they are meant to have come from, and why not a single decently convincing photo exists of one?

>>464579

There's one fairly major difference between a cat and a big cat.

>>464580
Panthers really aren't that big. They're much smaller than lions or tigers. Some big cats are bigger than others.

>>464581

They are also not as dangerous as you'd think. They usually keep away from humans in the wild and if one does approach you, it's normally just curious and won't harm you. But they will defend themselves if they feel threatened, and can cause serious non-lethal injury. Especially young males, as well as females with cubs.

>>464585

I mean you are objectively a bigger animal, logically you should be stronger, and strong enough to take a panther in a fight, you probably can't, because instead of spending all your life hunting in the jungle, you sit on your arse in microsoft office suite, but the panther doesn't know that.

>>464597

This may be true, but physical strength has never been the true evolutionary advantage of our species. Even the most sedentary modern humans are likely to easily win a 1v1 with just about any animal, as long as they have access to the utterly OP game breaking advantage of a pointy stick.

>>464598

I'm not sure your garden variety human could take down even a bull with a pointy stick. If you can't even defeat an animal selectively bread to be food I doubt most people could defeat an animal that modus operandi is murder of large mammals.

I don't think you appreciate how sedentary and overweight a normal human is.

Maybe a pointy stick loaded into a crossbow. But thats standing on the shoulders of giants, its just someone else's invention. Give the panther a customised crossbow and a bit of training and I'd say the odds are back in its favour again.

>>464599

Standing on the shoulders of giants is precisely why we're sedentary and overweight though. If you're going to give the panther a crossbow then it needs to come with the downsides of multi generational tool use too.

Also how is evolution itself not also the process of standing on the shoulders of giants? They wouldn't have such big claws if it wasn't for their ancestors.

>>464600

Everything has evolved. Even the most simple bacteria is a result of billions of years of evolution. So what is your point. Yes, when organic molecules first began to self-replicate, before you could even call them life as we understand it, they didn't have claws. Probably.

The difference is that our species is more advanced than any felid. Our biological evolution has led to social evolution. And by that I don't mean anything like social Darwinism, but our ability to acquire knowledge that results from conscious thought, and then passing on that knowledge to future generations. Any type of weapon that we have inventend and used, from hand axes to hydrogen bombs, is the result of that. There has been incremental growth in that knowledge.

A panther may show her cubs how to hunt or where there's water to be had in their territory, but by and large, panthers still hunt the same way they did a million years ago. They instinctively pass on their hunting skill, but no generation improves on it. Even great apes, who use tools and pass their usage on to their young in a way not entirely dissimilar to us, have stagnated. They still poke a twig into a tree hole to gather termites, a few at a time. None of them have had the idea of making a metal axe to cut open that section of tree to get to the termites more easily.

>>464601
My point is that as we evolved to use tools and they evolved to use their bodies, we're both "standing on the shoulders of giants". Equal footing. Giving them crossbows would create an imbalance, not equalise an existing one. For someone who bloviates so much you'd think this would be simple enough to follow.

>>464602

So your argument for why you are better than a panther is that you had a more privileged upbringing and you think them being given the same opportunities you've had would somehow be unfair to you?

How Harrowing

>>464627
I am not a hypothetical representation of all humans and while I do own a crossbow I don't know if it would give me a huge advantage over a panther given how much of a pain in the arse it is to draw the thing. You'd get one shot then you'd be better off trying to kick it to death.

>>464627

Are you poor?

Fuck me, this is "pineapple on pizza" levels of dull. And now one of you cunts is doing the "are you poor?" thing only wankers do. Absolutely dogshit thread, is this actually what you want to spend your evenings doing?

>>464632
Given that the whole suggestion that there is exotic giant wildlife running around this country's fields completely unnoticed is obviously, obviously bollocks, I must say I thought this thread turned out much better than I expected it to.

>>464631

No, Have you fucked a pigs head?

>>464638

Touché.

>>464632

Too poverty stricken to have an evening to spend.

Fact checked it on rudgwicksteamshow.co.uk, it's verified

>I have seen one three times in some local woods. I go to the woods maybe five times a week and have been doing this for over ten years - so seeing one three times is not very often.
>Once it had snowed and I was with my dogs. They saw the cat - it was black so it showed up beautifully- sitting on the path and ran at it.
>It looked up and did not move an inch. My dogs were the biggest labradors I’ve ever seen and the cat was bigger than them. It just stared at them. They turned tail and ran back to me. I stood and watched it for about another 40 seconds and it then just sauntered off.
>The woods have clear tracks in them but the parts without tracks are difficult to get into so I can see how it could escape being seen.
>One time I saw it my husband was with me- it was such a relief to have someone else see it.

> I saw one as a child in north wales - I used to live within the borders of Snowdonia national park so some pretty wild wilderness - This thing was bigger than a shetland pony, I saw it from the top of a hill and thought it was a dog at first, but then I saw the way its shoulders moved, it wasn't a sheepdog doing the sneaky belly walk, it was a cat. It calmly walked round the bottom of the hill, over a barbed wire fence and into the woods whilst I stood as still as I could manage, absolutely petrified. The gait was so distinctive it's still stuck in my head 20 years later.


https://pumawatch.co.uk/

You naysayers need to wake up to reality.

>>464630

I've got a crossbow, an air rifle, an air pistol, and a functional samurai sword, but out of any of them? I honestly think my weapon of choice, if you were going to throw me in a pit with a panther, would be the crowbar I bought a couple of years ago when I needed to take up some floorboards. It's hefty, that thing. I don't think much would survive a solid whack in the head.

A sword is undoubtedly deadlier, but requires the right technique, and I would probably be too much of a wimp to swing it hard enough anyway. The crossbow and guns are basically are trash tier for exactly the reasons you state- But I don't think they're really meant for PVP anyway. The reason I have them is so that when society inevitably collapses, I will still be able to hunt pigeons and squirrels after I run out of neighbours to cannibalise.

I think we underestimate how much adrenaline does for a human, though. The spear is the very weapon that put us on top of the food chain, it gives us the advantage of range, and piercing damage has always been pretty strong in the evolutionary meta. When push comes to shove, if their life was in danger, I think the vast majority of players (at least on the adult male class) would be fucking deadly with one.

>>464665
After I posted that I had second thoughts about the crossbow, I think actually held sideways it would be a fairly effective shield against panther swipes. You couldn't do as much blunt damage as a crowbar but it would have more surface area to act as a fence between you, leaving your legs free to kick it to death as previously mentioned. I agree on not using a sword, they're great against humans with our upright stance exposing vulnerable neck and belly but it's only going to piss off a panther before it gets in too close to swing at it. Crossbow or crowbar at least you can hold safely with a hand on each end for pushing back. If society does collapse I wouldn't recommend relying on panther meat for food, however.

>>464665

Spears are massively under-rated. There's a reason why the pike dominated the European battlefield for centuries. A charging animal - whether that's a panther or a cavalry horse - will quite happily skewer itself on your pointy stick.

>>464665
Crowbars are too heavy to swing. Put down the video games and pick up a hammer or a screwdriver. Even a saw would probably be more useful than a crowbar in actual combat.

>>464667
I'm not so sure - spears tend to be piercing weapons with a single attack animation (rarely you'll get a swipe), you have to be pin point twitch accurate to actually land the hit.

>>464668

Nonsense, "crowbar" covers a whole range of tool sizes.

>>464670

I'm always jealous of the mad ones that firemen have got. My big pry bar has got wheels, but it doesn't have a fuck off spike.

>>464668

Have you ever swung anything in real life, m8? Weight helps, not hinders. That's why sledgehammers are heavy. You get more force out of the swing than something light and weedy.

>>464567
I promise you they exist and the government knows and it is covered up.

>>464682
>it is covered up
Why would they cover it up?

>>464681
Okay. Put a sledgehammer on the ground in front of you, and pick it up and swing it at a charging panther before the panther reaches you. In fact, pick it up and swing it before I get to you and slap you in the face. Or would you just be walking around with your crowbar perpetually primed and ready to swing? Time is of the essence in these situations - that's why we have already established that a crossbow is no good - and there are no situations where a crowbar is faster to swing than a sword.

>>464684

Just how bad do you think the average person's had eye co-ordination is? It's not rocket science we're talking about here. And furthermore, it's what our ancestors did for millennia. It's literally what we are made for, even if we have mostly stopped practising. Yeah, it's not going to be a foolproof defence, there's every likelihood you'll fuck it and end up getting mauled. But it's going to give you a much better odds.

Anyway I don't know if you've ever had a crowbar in your hands but they are pretty easy to swing, that's the entire reason it feels like a natural choice for the job to me. It's blunt force so it doesn't require any special technique or accuracy, but it's also just the right weight and balance for somebody like me to wield without difficulty. Also the hooked end will essentially act like an axe or pick.

All I'm saying is that out of anything else I have at my immediate disposal, that's what I'd go for if a panther or random violent criminal broke into my flat. I don't ever intend to be in a situation where I have to defend myself like that, but if I were to find that situation forced upon me, I'd feel most confident with that. Not just because I played Half Life.