Puma sightings in Yorkshire - actual big cat or misidentification?

Right so there's been a spate of reports in the last month from around Ilkley Moor and the surrounding moorland of a large black cat. Sheep farmers saying livestock has been spooked (though no confirmed kills). One walker swears they saw something crossing the road near Addingham with the "wrong" gait for a dog.

Most of this is anecdotal but the consistency is interesting - always described as large, black, feline features. Could be an escaped big cat (we've had pumas and panthers kept as pets by dodgy collectors over the years) or could be misidentification of a large dog or sheep in poor light.

The interesting angle: environmental agency won't confirm or deny whether they've received official reports. Which usually means they have and don't want to cause panic.

Has anyone been hiking the Yorkshire moors recently? Any personal sightings or evidence?

Friend of mine farms near Ilkley and he's properly worried about his lambs. He's set up motion-sensor cameras but hasn't caught anything definitive yet. Says the way livestock has been behaving is unlike anything he's seen before though.

Whether that's a big cat or just unusual weather affecting behaviour is unclear but he's taking it seriously.

Yorkshire's had "big cat" reports forever though. Usually comes down to escaped pets, which is possible given how many people kept exotic animals before regulations tightened. A puma from the 90s could still be alive if it thrived in the wild.

The Bodmin Beast connection is worth noting - similar reports, similar terrain, similar climate. Whether that was an actual animal or mass hysteria, the Yorkshire reports might follow the same pattern. One sighting gets reported, media picks it up, suddenly everyone sees a black cat.

sheep farmers saying livestock has been spooked

To be fair, sheep spook at basically anything. They're nervous animals. Need actual evidence - dead livestock with claw marks or photos - before I'm convinced there's a big cat. Spooked sheep proves nothing.

If there was genuinely a breeding population of pumas in Yorkshire we'd have noticed by now. Hunting animals leave evidence - kills, tracks, scat, sightings from multiple independent sources on the same night. Getting one anecdotal report a month isn't evidence of an actual animal.