The beasts that keep an MP awake at night

Paul Tyler, the Liberal Democrat MP for North Cornwall, is an unlikely big game hunter. One could hardly picture the MP, who spends his free time pottering in the garden or sailing, posing with rifle in hand and his boot resting on a dead tiger.

Yet despite assurances from government officials that wild beasts are not roaming the farmlands and national parks of Britain, Mr Tyler is demanding that the search for pumas, lynxes and cougars must continue. His suspicions have been fuelled by the mysterious savaging of five ewes while grazing on a landscaped tip in his constituency at St Austell.

Mr Tyler has been told by five Cornish councillors that they spotted a puma taking a drink from a pool in the same area while on a council coach trip last month. Planning committee chirwoman Joan Vincent said that another councillor drew her attention to the animal as they were passing clay workings near Penwithick.

"It was drinking from a pool," said Mrs Vincent. "It was larger than an Alsatian dog. It was very dark brown, with a longish tail, curved at the end. It was definitely a big animal of some kind."

Mr Tyler said this weekend: "I shall be approaching the Ministry of Agriculture on Monday to make sure the previous investigation, which I instigated three years ago, is resumed."

But while Mr Tyler would have no trouble convincing other MPs of the reality of the Rt Honourable Dennis Skinner MP, aka the Beast of Bolsover has had less success in establishing the existence of the Beast of Bodmin (pictured, allegedly), the Beast of Cupar in Scotland and other "big cats".

Charles Wilson, a zoologist who carried out the previous government inquiry, concluded there was no evidence to show large cats were living on Bodmin Moor. Nevertheless, Mr Tyler has collected a dossier of big cat sightings and says the government inquiry "did not produce any conclusive evidence either way".