Did A Mystery Beast Savage These Hares?

Is a big cat on the prowl in Lincolnshire? A woman believes the bodies of two mutilated hares in her garden and two very large paw prints on her window may be evidence of such a big cat on the prowl.

Several sightings of big cats have been reported across Lincolnshire over recent weeks including in Mablethorpe, Toynton All Saints, near Spilsby, and Partney. Jacqui Greenfield says her family were 'freaked out' after they spotted the paw prints on a window of one their outbuildings at their remote home in Skellingthorpe.

They then found the bodies of two hares on their lawn later that day. Jacqui said: "I have never seen a cat, dog or fox anywhere even near our property. It's just very strange. "I don't really understand it. I don't know what else it could be?" The mother of four's husband was the first person to spot the mysterious smudges on the window of the outbuilding and thought they had been left there by window cleaners. But when Jacqui inspected them more closely, she realised that they didn't look like hand prints. The prints are have a span slightly smaller than the size of Jacqui's hand, but they had paw prints where the ball of the hand would be, and they were on the lower half of the glass doors. Later that day, they found the two hares dead on their lawn.

She told the Lincolnshire Echo: "The night before we had watched the hares. My kids were saying, look there's a mummy and a baby. "It was those two rabbits that were dead on the lawn the next day. "If you look at their bodies they've been pecked by crows, but it wouldn't have been crows that killed them." Jacqui says her and her four daughters have been left nervous by the strange events.

"My daughters were actually a little bit freaked out and nervous," she said. "We would go out at night and sit on the patio but since then I've been a bit wary. We look around and think, what is out there."