Unit 1 A

puma at large

Pumas
are large, cat-like animals which are
were found in America
Africa. When reports
the
report came into London Zoon that
a wild
puma had been
was spotted forty-
five miles
far away
south of London, They were
not taken seriously
. it did not take
serious. However, as
But the evidence began to accumulate
, the experts from the
 
of zoon felt
obliged to investigate, for the description given by people
who claimed to have seen the puma were
extraordinarily
similar.
 
because the people who claim they saw the puma
similar.

The
hunt for the
puma
began in
at a small village where
a woman picking blackberries saw “a
large cat” only
five
yards away from her. It immediately ran away when she saw it, (when she saw it,
it ran away immediately). And experts confirmed that a puma will not
attack human being unless
it is cornered. The search proved difficult, for the puma was often observed at one place in the
morning and at another place twenty miles away in the evening.
Wherever it went
, it left behind
it a trial of dead
deer and small animals like rabbits. Paw prints were seen in
a number of places
and puma fur were found
clinging to bushes. Several
people complained
of
‘cat-like noises’
at night and a businessman
on a
fishing trip
saw it up a tree. The experts were now
fully
convinced that the animal
was
a puma
, but where had
it come
from? As no puma had been reported
missing from any zoo in the country, this one must have been in the possession
of a private collector and somehow manage to escape.
The hunt went on
for several weeks,
but the puma was not
caught
. It is
disturbing to think that
a dangerous wild animal is still at large
in the quite countryside
.