By Hayley Robinson

Are there two big cats running wild in Kemsley?

Kent Big Cat researcher Neil Arnold thinks so after a motorist and two security guards emailed him about two separate sightings 10 days apart.

The security workers were sitting in their hut close to Kemsley railway line at about 5am on Saturday, November 13, when one of their spotlights revealed two bright green eyes staring at them from the undergrowth.

Unnerved by the sighting the men stepped outside and saw what they described as a "big black animal, the size of a dog" which turned and walked off.

Armed with torches, both men searched the surrounding vegetation but to no avail.

Their sighting came a week after a motorist claimed to have seen a large cat which he described as being fox-sized with leopard markings in Newman Drive at about 7.30pm on Wednesday, November 3.

The man said it ran across the road five metres ahead and over the bridge that crosses the Kemsley drain.

Mr Arnold, (pictured) from Rochester, who researches such sightings full-time, said: "What the motorist described sounds like a leopard cat which is a smaller species and is the type of animal someone could keep.

"These sightings are interesting because there’s been big cat sightings on the Isle of Sheppey. I’ve never been convinced that a big cat comes off the Island but I’ve always thought if it did it would come along the railway line.

"There have been lots of sightings especially in the Milton Creek area over the last three months and also at Bobbing as well, but it could of course be the same animal seen around the Blue Bell Hill area.

"These animals can live to the age of 13 in the wild and they can only breed with their own species suggesting a viable breeding population of each species."

Report big cat sightings to Neil Arnold on 01634 819746
or email neil.arnold@live.com