Right so I've been going through a load of reports from the US and a few from over here and this keeps coming up - railroad lines, old disused ones especially, seem to crop up again and again in the location data. Not sure if its coincidence or if there's actually something to it.
My theory, and its pretty rough at this point, is that disused rail corridors create these long undisturbed strips of habitat that run for miles through woodland and farmland without much human traffic. If something large and territorial exists it would make sense to use those routes. Same reason big cats get spotted along them here in the UK.
What I can't figure out is whether the railroad correlation is about the habitat the lines cut through or something older, like the routes themselves following older paths that predate the railways entirely. Ancient trackways, ley lines, whatever you want to call it. Probably sounds daft but the overlap in some of these reports is hard to ignore.
Anyone else been mapping this? Specifically interested if anyone has data from the Pennines or northern England.