Bodmin Moor Beast footage on ITV West Country — anyone catch it or is it the usual blurry nonsense?

There was a segment on ITV West Country news last Tuesday about a farmer near Bodmin who's been finding livestock with what he's calling "unusual injuries" and claims to have captured something large on a trail cam. They showed about four seconds of grainy footage before cutting to a talking head from a wildlife charity who said it was almost certainly a large domestic cat or fox, which... fair enough that's probably true, but they showed the clip so briefly and at such low resolution it was impossible to actually evaluate.

Now obviously this is the Beast of Bodmin Moor we're talking about, which has been running since at least the eighties and has basically become the cryptid equivalent of a local tourist industry at this point. I know that. But the footage apparently came from a proper trail cam setup - the farmer mentioned it was a Browning Strike Force, which isn't cheap, decent night vision - and the figure in it does look more substantial than your average wandering tabby.

Has anyone seen the full clip or found a better version online? I had a look on YouTube and found about forty videos all claiming to be the ITV footage but they're all obviously different things or clearly hoaxed. Also - and I know this is a long shot - does anyone on here have experience actually going out on Bodmin at night to look for whatever this thing is? I'm genuinely thinking about making a trip down from London this summer. Would be interested to hear from people who've done it.

The ITV West Country segment is on their website if you search for it - it's about three minutes forty and the actual trail cam clip is from about 1:20 to 1:28, so yes, about eight seconds which is even less than you thought. The resolution is genuinely poor. Browning Strike Force records in 1080p in daylight but the night vision mode drops quality significantly and this was clearly at distance too. Honestly I can't tell you with any confidence what it is. Could be a large dog. Could be something else. The gait looked odd to me but I've spent too long staring at blurry cryptid footage to trust my own pattern recognition anymore.

I went to Bodmin specifically for the Beast about four years ago, spent three nights camping near Brown Willy with a mate who had night vision gear. Saw absolutely nothing unusual. Heard something big moving through undergrowth on the second night that we couldn't account for - probably a deer, probably - but no visual. The moor itself is brilliant and creepy and worth going to regardless. If you go in summer the midges are ferocious so pack accordingly and the ground gets surprisingly boggy even in dry weather so proper boots not trainers, for the love of god.

Also the pub in Bolventor does a reasonable pasty and the landlord will absolutely tell you the Beast story if you give him any encouragement at all.

The Beast of Bodmin is almost certainly a population of large feral cats - pumas, panthers, possibly lynx - descended from animals released when the Dangerous Wild Animals Act came in in 1976 and exotic pet ownership became regulated. There's enough consistent evidence for that hypothesis that even Natural England has effectively acknowledged the possibility. What it isn't is a Bigfoot or a Sasquatch, which is what this forum is nominally about. Bodmin gets lumped in with cryptid databases constantly but the actual explanation, while interesting, is a lot more mundane than an undiscovered primate species.

What it isn't is a Bigfoot or a Sasquatch, which is what this forum is nominally about.

I actually emailed ITV West Country asking for the full unedited trail cam footage back when it aired and got a very polite reply saying it belonged to the farmer and they'd only licensed a short clip. Tried to find the farmer's name - they didn't give it in the segment - and drew a blank. If anyone has more info on who actually submitted the footage that would be useful. I suspect the full clip would be more informative than the broadcast edit.

Two things about the Bodmin Beast that always get overlooked in these discussions. First: there have been credible sightings going back well before the 1976 Act, which complicates the escaped exotic pet theory somewhat. Second: the area has a genuinely peculiar landscape - old mine workings, natural caves, extensive underground water systems - that could theoretically support a small breeding population of large animals that rarely needed to surface. Cornwall is also far enough from major population centres that a shy, nocturnal predator could plausibly operate there with infrequent human contact. None of that proves anything but I think the how would it survive without being properly documented objection is weaker for Bodmin than almost anywhere else in England.

The best night vision setup for this kind of fieldwork without spending absolutely silly money is probably the Sionyx Aurora - you can pick one up for around £400 and the low-light performance is genuinely impressive. Better than most trail cams for active observation rather than passive monitoring. If you're going to Bodmin for a proper look rather than just a walk it's worth considering. Though honestly the trail cam network approach is more likely to produce useable footage - something like six cameras set up on known livestock paths over a week would give you much better odds than one person walking around with a torch.