GRAPHIC PICTURES: St Albans dog walker finds severed deer foot remains - is this more proof of the controversial big cat?

A severed deer foot carcass found by a unsuspecting dog walker may be yet another piece of evidence for the existence of the St Albans big cat.

Sue Greenwood was walking her dog in Wheathampstead at about lunchtime on Tuesday October 3 when she spotted the remains of a single deer foot and lower leg, with stripped bone broken and completely exposed just above the knee joint.

She said: “I walk there all the time, and I am walking around with my dog and literally it was on the side of the footpath. It was fresh and soft. It can’t have been a fox, it was possibly this big cat.

“What was left there, a fox wouldn’t have killed and stripped it like that.”

Although she used to disbelieve reports of a big cat sighting, Sue admits she is now a “bit of a believer”.

“I haven’t seen the big cat, but it’s hard to believe anything else has done that. I used to be a sceptic but now I’m not, but it doesn’t bother me because I know it won’t attack me unless it’s cornered.”

Adding: “I don’t know where the rest [of the deer] is because that was on its own, there weren’t any bits, there was no blood - unless it dragged it away.”

This latest finding is just another piece in the big cat puzzle - witness reports have been building up over this year, and a taxi driver even managed to snap a highly debated video of the potential beast.

Half of a mutilated deer, stripped to the spine, was found by a different dog walker in April and in June large “feline” pawprints were preserved leading through a golf bunker after a night of rain.

In January two Oaklands College staff members saw “a large, sandy-coloured cat”, scratch marks were found on a tree after a “huge animal” was seen near Welwyn, and a big black cat was spotted by Luton Airport last year.

Reports have come from all around the district, including Wheathampstead, Welwyn Garden City, Hatfield, Sandridge, and Luton.

A Freedom of Information request in November 2016 revealed that Herts Police received about 30 big cat reports in the previous five years. They ask sightings are reported on 101 and a safe distance is kept from the animal.

Seen the big cat? Email hertsad@archant.co.uk