Villagers caught a miracle beast, but it disappeared under strange circumstances
It seems another appearance of the semi-mythical Belarusian wildcat has occurred. First, the animal broke into a village chicken coop, killed several birds, then got caught in a trap left there, and the next day mysteriously disappeared (leaving behind a menacing video and a pile of chicken feathers). Now everyone is wondering how this is possible, writes Onliner.by.
The saga of the wildcat has been going on for years. It was believed that the last Belarusian specimen was killed by a hunter in 1927. Until 2017, when a similar animal was captured by a camera trap in the Belarusian part of the Chernobyl zone (not very clearly).
Everyone felt in their hearts that it was indeed him, but at that time, this photo was not enough for formal confirmation.
And on June 16, 2025, a wildcat was caught by a badger camera trap in the Pripyatsky National Park. It posed there with all its feline might.
Since then, it vanished as if into thin air — despite attempts to track it down and obtain even a tiny bit of biomaterial for analysis.
Broke in to plunder
The latest alleged appearance of the wildcat was reported by amateur naturalist Yuri Malets, who learned about it from an eyewitness. The events unfolded in the village of Dzyarzhynsk, Lelchytsy district. On March 14, the animal was found in a local residents' shed: its paw was caught in a trap left there. Before that, it had managed to kill six chickens.
The trap was fastened with a chain to a vertically standing pole. It was left there for a marten or a ferret — but a truly unique character got caught.
Disappeared along with the trap and chain
The animal was temporarily left in the shed — "pending clarification of circumstances." The owners went to work; when they returned, the pole was lying on the ground, and the cat was gone. They say it disappeared (along with the trap and chain) between 5:30 AM and 7:00 AM. Now they are wondering if it freed itself or if someone helped it.
A video remains, giving an idea of what the cat looked like.
In "Pripyatsky," they clarified: this is not "their" specimen, it's evident from the coloring. This means, perhaps, there are already more than one wildcat in Belarus.
Enthusiast Malets hopes that biological traces of the disappeared animal (for example, fur) were left at the scene, which could finally physically confirm the species of the animal.
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