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Beast of Buchan
The Beast of Buchan is a British big cat or phantom cat reportedly sighted mainly in the historic Buchan area of Aberdeenshire in northeast Scotland. Sightings throughout other areas of Scotland, stretching from the northern highlands down to the border with England, have also been claimed; the earliest reports date back to the 1930s. The tales of the Buchan Beast are as well known as those of the Beast of Bodmin.
==Background==
Sightings of the Buchan beast have been recorded since the 1930s; preliminary reports of big cats throughout Britain, however date to much earlier times. Writing in his book ''Rural Rides'', the author William Cobbett described seeing a cat similar in size to a medium spaniel when he was a child in Surrey during the 1760s; he identified it as being the same type of animal as a Lynx he saw years later in America. The keeping of exotic pets on large British country estates was not unheard of by the middle of the 18th century and circuses began travelling with menageries. In 1868 five leopards escaped from their cages while being transported between Lockerbie and Moffat but were all re-captured.
The UK has two native species of cat that live in the wild, domestic feral cats and wildcats. Throughout the UK reports of large cats became widespread; in 2006 a survey indicated there were 6,000 sightings of exotic cats in the preceding five years while an article in ''The Guardian'' speculated there could be up to 7,000 sightings annually. Author and environmentalist George Monbiot, however quotes a lower figure giving an estimated number of 2,000 sightings a year. The use of alliteration particularly appeals to the media and it was in the 1980s the animals began to be generally referred to as the "Beasts of ...". The Beast of Bodmin is the most familiar to the general public but the tales of the Buchan beast are equally well known. During the first six years of the 21st century fifty sightings were reported including areas stretching from Ardersier in the north through to Inverurie and Fraserburgh occasionally as far south as the English border, although the highest concentration is in rural areas of Aberdeenshire. In the period from May 2000 until January 2002, twenty-two sightings were reported to Grampian Police but the force believed it likely 80 percent of sightings were never reported.
Alex Salmond raised concerns about attacks on farm livestock by the Beast in the House of Commons in 1997; at the time he was the Member of parliament for the Banff and Buchan constituency. The matter was raised again in 2002 when Ross Finnie, at that time Minister for the Environment and Rural Development, was asked by Richard Lochhead, the Scottish National Party member of parliament for northeast Scotland, to instigate a formal enquiry concerning the reports.
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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