BY CJ MCGINLEY

THE hunt was on yesterday (Thursday) for a wild cougar which Gardai believe may be roaming the hills of Donegal attacking sheep. It may also be a panther.

The wild cat mauled a flock of sheep in the Ballylawn area of Manorcunningham recently and was spotted by locals racing across a field after the attack. Speaking yesterday Superintendent Vincent O'Brien confirmed a team of gardai along with the local ISPCA Inspector and Wildlife Officers held a top level meeting yesterday in Letterkenny as fears grow about future attacks.

"We have got dropping samples and they've been sent away for analysis, so we're not exactly sure what kind of animal we're dealing with. The sightings we have report that it was a large black cat type animal such as a cougar that moved extremely fast across the fields and was noticed crawling on its belly," Superintendent O'Brien told the Donegal News.

"The first reported sighting was back in 2007 in the Newtowncunningham area although the animal described on that occasion was a different colour. We have alerted Wildlife Officers and we're appealing to people to be vigilant in the East Donegal area, particularly farmers," Superintendent O'Brien

said .He confirmed the matter was now being treated extremely seriously by gardai and a search was underway to find the animal.

"We're not making any further comment at this stage and we don't want to alarm people and create a panic," he stressed.

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