As shark says one is panic and hysteria, but two is the fact they created the problem themselves by making it illegal to keep them as house pets in the 70s but never made it illegal to release them until the 80s though I do think there have been cats here since ww2 at least, mascots zoos and circuses were all subject to meat rationing so easier to let them go, the government department MAFF, now DEFRA actually employed a guy to catch big cats there is a trap called the Aldridge trap on the permitted trap register that he used it is still on there and the reason for using it states to capture l