A family is terrified they could come face to face with a big cat after hearing roars throughout the night.

Growls heard from the woods are ‘identical’ to the noises made by pumas or cougars, they claim.

The stressful situation comes after apparent sightings of the ‘harmless’ predators are reported across the country.

Experts have warned more Brits may be destined to lay eyes on them as they venture closer to towns and villages following Covid lockdown.

The anonymous family lives less than 20 miles away from a series of apparent big cat sightings of an animal dubbed the Puma of Pontybodkin in North Wales.

Reporting the incident to monitoring group Puma Watch North Wales, they said: ‘We live next to Coed Pen Y Pigyn in Corwen and often hear animals at night, when letting our dog out for a wee.

‘However, this time we heard what sounded like a loud, medium to high pitch roar from the woods.

‘We compared the sound to YouTube sound effect videos of Pumas and Cougars and the growls and roars were identical.’

Tony Jones, founder of Puma Watch North Wales, said it was ‘the latest in a long series of reported big cats, both within Corwen itself and the wider Dee Valley’.

He continued: ‘Back in June, a “large, black creature” ran towards a Corwen resident while she was hanging washing on the line.

‘And around a year ago, Corwen hit the headlines after a suspected puma was caught on video walking on a railway line. This was within a few hundred metres of Coed Pen y Pigyn woods.

‘Big cats such as pumas are solitary with a hunting range of dozens of miles. They’re mostly spotted in Snowdonia and the Clwydian hills but reports of sightings in urban locations some distance from these areas are becoming more frequent.’

A number of large felines have reportedly also been seen across Gloucestershire and Somerset.

The majority of the British public ‘think descriptions of black leopards or pumas stalking through our woods and fields is unbelievable’, Frank Tunbridge, who studies big cats, says.

But ‘the experience is unforgettable and it lives with people forever’, he added.

Mr Tunbridge said: ‘The whole subject of “big cats” living and thriving within the UK has been rolling on for decades now without a satisfactory conclusion, even though the evidence for their existence is overwhelming.’

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