bobcat--eek!

I saw a friend yesterday who I haven't talked to in a while at her son's bday party. She had it at a skating rink but said she would have rather had it at her home.. When I asked her why she didn't she said because there is a bobcat living near her house and it keeps eating the neighborhood cats and dogs!! Ew. OK I have seen and heard bobcats before, but never one that lived in a neighborhood.. That would be scary. Usually they hang out away from people and you might catch a glimpse of one or see a footprint while taking a nature hike.

She said she called the game commission but they are havng a problem finding it because they don't know where it sleeps.. So I guess they are calling when the hear/see it (and OMG do they make an awful screechy noise).. I'd be going out of my mind because she has 2 small children..

It seems to me that they could track it with a good hunting dog and catch it that way.

Forgive a dumb Aussie but can you humanely trap a bobcat and release it in an area where it wouldn't cause problems?

yesterday we were joking about setting up a bobcat trap with my friend for bait lol! I think honestly if they do have a way to trap it and release it they WILL, but I think they will probably just kill it.. I would think tho if they wanted to catch it they would probably use a tranquilizer gun or something.. I'll update when and if it happens.. They aren't extremely common around here, but they are game animals in northern PA so I'm guessing a few of them just end up down here coming from the northern counties.. I heard a few years ago one was trying to eat a woman's cats, so the woman started chasing it with a broom and the bobcat attacked and killed her. Also this summer it seems like a lot of the farms are taking animal casualties, everyone has been thinking it's coyotes, but now I'm starting to think we may have more bobcats than usual this year. I'd still rather have them then bears though!

This always makes me sad, they were here first, we keep encroaching into their territory and then we kill them. Something is really wrong with that system.

When we lived in Alaska and I attended UAA there was a mama moose that would routinely show up on campus. She would just walk around and eat the willow trees, never harming anyone. One year she showed up with a baby calf. Some idiot grabbed a camera and stepped between the mom moose and the baby and started snapping pictures. Mom freaked and charged and threw the photographer several feet and stomped him into the snow. The police came and shot the moose. All she was doing was protecting her own from an idiot!

MA, that happens all too often.

I didn't know what a bobcat looked like and I found this:



It's from www.nenature.com . They're beautiful looking creatures but sound like they can be a bit of a bother when humans encroach onto their land or vice versa. Are they a lot bigger than your average domestic cat?

They are so cute.. I think they get to be maybe twice the size of a cat or the size of a medium dog, they are not big at all, but they are fierce..


(http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/pl...f90/bobcat.htm)

but you know you can't really have them running loose in neighborhoods.. Seriously for all I know they may trap and release, I just assumed since there is a bobcat hunting season that they would just feel it would be easier to kill it. I dont agree with it or anything, but I understand the people in the neighborhood wanting it gone in any way possible..

When I lived in Texas we had one that used to live in our backyard, granted our back yard was 25 acres. They are fairly large compared to a house cat, not nearly as big as large cats like lions or tigers. They can weight up to around 30 lbs. My dad has a video tape of the bobcat taking a poop, LOL well he didn't mean to get footage of that he was just trying to record the bobcat because he thought it was beautiful. So while my dad was recording him the bobcat thought that taking a dump would be an appropriate thing to do.

LOL bass!

I hate it that us humans encroach onto animal territory and they get attacked, and as a result the animal gets shot because they attacked a human, just to protect their area or young. It really doesnt make sense.

Bobcats are beautiful!

I can't imagine a bobcat killing an adult human! Couldn't that lady have beat it away with her broom handle? They might be dangerous to children, though. Is there a wildlife rescue or humane removal service in your area that you can call?

This is a good picture that my brother got of a mountain lion at my grandmother's ranch in NM. It was the only time he'd ever been hiking out there without a gun, too...he was pretty nervous. The lion stalked him all the way home - he picked up a big rock & carried it over his head to make himself look bigger (he's already 6'1"). I told him I thought it was a cute picture, hiding behind the rocks, waiting to pounce. He said "It WAS NOT cute!"

Generally, if you leave these animals alone they will not harm you, but it's still good to be cautious.

The sad thing is, that it was once all the animal's territory and right from the stone age, we've been taking it away. I guess it is possible, though, to strike a balance between looking after the animals and providing us humans with what we need.

It is sad. Hopefully we will stop overpopulation while there is still some wildlife habitat remaining.

tess.. what i heard happened was that the woman was pretty old and she just wanted to chase it away, not hurt it// So I guess it got freaked out and jumped on her, but it went for her neck and crushed her windpipe, so it's not like it ate her or anything, it was just a freak kind of thing..

Oh, my, that's sad. And she was just trying to defend her pet! Thanks for the clarification.

Bobcats are bad around children because small children are the right size for prey for some of them.

We lost a cat to a coyote. They didn't used to live in our neighborhood, but they started coming into the neighborhood and the old guy was gotten as he was coming in for the evening. It really hurt for a while.

When I was a kid, my grandparents lived in a neighborhood right at the edge of woods and farmland. There was a bobcat that would come and look in the glass doors during breakfast. It apparently went all over the neighborhood, and didn't bother anything or anybody, so everyone just left it alone. It was around there for years.

Bobcats frequently show up in people's yards, here. Most of know to leave them alone.

Fish & wildlife recommends that you don"t leave pet foOd out, overnight. A couple of weeks ago< some idiot brought home a baby bobcat. Since it bit him, it has to be euthanized to test for rabies.

We have Bobcats, coyotes, badgers and now mountain lions living in the neighborhood. A female coyote lived in the field next door for about 4 years and never bothered our cats - she hunted field rodents and the neighbor's dog food bin. We are more bothered by roaming dogs than the true "wildlife". We give our outdoor ferals many places to hide from predators and I can say that they only thing that has gotten them are dogs.

My hats off to Kansas City media when last year, someone hit a mountain lion with their car and killed it. Rather than creating a panic by announcing that there are 11 (confirmed) lions living in the KC area (which we knew about but hoped that the general public wouldn't find out about), and everyone should take arms and protect themselves, they made a calm announcement and dropped the story. I was so afraid that it would draw a media blitz and everyone would be out hunting lion.

We have encrouched their homes. We can shelter our own but not at the expense of taking away the shelter of others......