FEARS that a panther-like cat is on the loose in North Yorkshire have been renewed after a large black cat was spotted in Scarborough.

A man walking his dog on Royal Albert Drive saw the feline on some disused tennis courts, but it scampered up a nearby cliff and disappeared from view.

The man described the beast as being the size of a dog, with a shiny black coat.

The Evening Press reported last year that nine sheep had been mauled to death at a farm between Pickering and Scarborough. The animals were found slaughtered with their stomachs ripped open, and were covered in claw marks.

In the past three years there have been more than 50 sightings of an animal resembling a big cat, about the size of a cheetah or puma, in villages around Ryedale and Scarborough.

The Scarborough sighting on Wednesday morning came on the same day as a television programme which cited North Yorkshire as an area with a large number of sightings of the beasts.

The same morning, another man on his way to work in Scarborough, saw what he thought was a mink in the car park at Pindarset, Newlands Park Drive. The man said the animal was much bigger than a ferret, and coal black in colour. Police do not think the sightings are linked.

Updated: 12:37 Tuesday, March 08, 2005