“There’s an inner circle to the cat world. Thousands of people in Britain populate big-cat Facebook groups but only a few dozen are committed to tracking the beasts. He usually has a handful of camcorders in position at any one time and spends hours sifting through video. Every holiday offers the opportunity to collect more evidence from a new place. Over the years Tunbridge has put cameras in scores of locations across the British countryside to obtain confirmatory footage. A retired carpenter and car-boot-sale organiser now in his 70s, he has wiry hair, sharp eyes and jowls weathered by long hours spent outdoors. He records the details of each report in his notebooks, some of which feature biro sketches scratched in thick black lines. He’s convinced they’re living in the countryside and his commitment to proving this has made him Britain’s go-to man for sightings of exotic predators. Not a day goes by when they don’t prowl through his mind. Tunbridge has spent 30 years searching for evidence of Britain’s big cats. “He shook my hands when he left later,” he laughed. Rabbit or deer bones would indicate that the scat came from a carnivore. “Frank found a lovely bit of poo, bit of scat, and he was pulling it apart in front of me with his hands,” Bilney remembered. He says this improves his tracking, forcing him to move slowly and observe carefully. Tunbridge has a busted left knee and ankle, causing him to throw his weight rightwards when walking. When they reached the spot, Tunbridge scrabbled around looking for traces of the creature: stray hairs, paw prints in the mud or scratched bark on trees.
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