Black cat sighting on the moors - genuine cryptid or escaped exotic pet?

This happened about a week ago, Ilkley Moors near Menston (West Yorkshire), around 4 PM on a cloudy afternoon. I was out for a walk with my partner and we both saw this absolutely massive black cat - easily the size of a Doberman - moving through the heather about 100 metres away.

Before everyone says 'oh it's just a feral dog' or 'you imagined it': it had a distinctly feline body shape, moved like a cat (that particular sinuous gait), and had a long tail. It definitely wasn't a dog. We both got a decent look.

The Ilkley Moors is prime territory for the British big cat phenomena, and there are loads of reports from that area going back decades. But I'm genuinely unsure if we saw something genuinely cryptozoological or if someone's just let their exotic pet escape (which happens).

Anyone else had sightings in the Pennines? Is there any actual tracking or research going on around these British big cats, or is it all just anecdotal?

Ilkley's a proper hotspot for reports. There's been sightings there for decades. Whether it's an actual surviving wild population or escaped pets is genuinely unclear - probably a mix of both. You definitely saw something though. Too many consistent reports to dismiss entirely. Have you reported it to the local wildlife trust or any cryptozoology groups? They keep databases.

Did you get any photos? Got to say, without evidence it's difficult to distinguish between a large feral dog, an escaped lynx or puma, or a genuine undocumented big cat population. The Pennines have definitely got the terrain for something like that to survive, but actual concrete evidence is basically nonexistent.

There was a spate of big cat sightings around Pendle Hill about ten years ago. Most of them were probably misidentified domestic animals, but a few were genuinely odd. The problem is that big cats are incredibly elusive and the moors have terrible visibility sometimes, so getting clear sightings is proper difficult. Good to document these things though - patterns emerge over time.

I'm pretty skeptical of the 'impossible' cryptid angle, but I absolutely believe people are seeing something. Most likely explanation is still escaped or released exotic pets. Private collections are more common than people realise and regulations are lax. Still worth investigating though.