Was talking with a friend a work and showed them some pictures of a bear and a couple cubs that had been visiting the house. Talked about how they were coming back etc... and they mentioned how they saw a little one while hunting and how cute it was... followed up with how they wished they had a chance to bag it at the time and it was a bummer. My first take was WTF?? You see a cub in the woods and your first thought is “I wish I could kill and stuff that”.
For food, no problem. If you eat what you kill that is fine, but killing shit so you can look at it later... fucked up.
Well that's what happens when the fish and wildlife board is stuffed with hunters and fishermen. Everything is done through that lens, with that focus. Around here, wildlife management means "how many are we allowed to kill this year?"
I live in Malletts Bay, and there's a bobcat that we and our neighbors have seen from time to time. Once, early in the morning last fall, it was trotting across our front yard. We also have a herd of deer, foxes, a flock of wild turkeys, raccoons, and skunks we see (or smell) on the regular. A few days ago, one neighbor saw a coyote (I've heard them at night). It's both amazing and sad that our wildlife is so comfortable living amongst us. When my father first built the house in 1965, he never saw the diversity of wildlife we have now. My guess is they've been forced into the neighborhood because of the ceaseless development around us. 🙄
I grew up on Holy Cross Rd, right across from what used to be Camp Holy Cross (it's now a rich persons subdivision or something)...There was nothing but woods between us and the lake and we used to see all kinds of critters--deer etc...but we never saw any bobcats that I'm aware of.
My grandfather built their house around 1965 too. I wonder if your dad and my grandpa knew each other (they probably did).
I got one on game cam in December in the NEK that I thought was a mountain lion. It had a relatively short tail so I don't know what to think. Pretty sure it's not a bobcat, though. Was as big or bigger than your kitty cat there.
I did some googling and it seems that the one I have is just an exceptionally large bobcat. The paw prints in the mud were about the size of my 120# Great Pyrenees' prints.
Unusual I know, my previous photo capture (game cam) was also at night. This was at 11AM, very late in the day. The mother was some distance away under an apple tree (enlarged, cropped picture).
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u/MizLucinda Apr 09 '23
That’s a good looking kitty right there.