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| Photo by Gary Kramer , U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via Wikimedia Commons |
By Diane Hettrick
I commuted downtown on the bus for several years (2001-2005). At the neighborhood bus stop, I had a chance to meet and talk to neighbors I would not normally see.
One of these neighbors was new in the neighborhood. She had bought a new home on a small lot dug into a wooded hillside.
It snowed that year - not much - but it stayed on the ground for a while.
This neighbor told me that she had seen big paw prints in the snow on her deck - they looked like cat prints but were twice as big. We speculated, but couldn't figure out what it might be.
Then a few days later, she reported that she had seen the mystery animal and that it was a huge cat. Bigger than any cat she had ever seen, she said.
Could it be a Maine Coon Cat? I asked. They are very big.
No, she said. My own cats are very large and this cat was half again as big as they are. Beside, her cats were inside, freaking out at this monster cat on the deck.
She caught a glimpse of it one more time. The snow melted, and she didn't see it again.
Time passed. I remembered her story but didn't quite know what to think about it.
Then I stumbled across a local professor who was studying lynx in Washington forests and told him my story.
Aaron Wirsing, Assistant Professor, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS) at the University of Washington, told me:
I suspect that your neighbor spied a bobcat (Lynx rufus). Bobcats are closely related to lynx but are able to use a wide variety of habitats, including city suburbs. They typically weigh about 25 pounds and have paws that are about twice the size of those of a domestic cat.
I’ve been informed that there are quite a few bobcats in the greater Seattle area. Congratulations to your neighbor on a neat sighting, and thanks for the inquiry!
Mystery solved.
I have only heard one other bobcat story. Early in 2014, a resident of Innis Arden told her neighbors that she had seen a large cat in a tree. She searched the internet and came to the conclusion that she had seen a bobcat. Looks like she was right.
I live in Shoreline, and speaking with my next door neighbor today, he indicated to me that he had recently come home late one night, and in the light shining outside his side door, he saw a bobcat. His description was spot on, but I wasn't sure whether or not to believe him until I read this post. WOW! I will be certain to put my chickens in before dark, even though I do already because a raccoon has recently targeted them.
ReplyDeleteYears ago I would drop by my mom's house in Shoreline not far from the QFC store on Richmond Beach Rd and she would tell me about this large cat that would visit. It would come up on the deck and she would put food out but the cat would run away. After she passed away and I now live in that house I caught sight of a large cat. This was not your normal house cat, it acted wild and kept its distance from me. In the 80's I would walk the tracks with a buddy of mine usually close to dusk and we would see these large wild cats come out from the woods chasing field mice and every now and then see carcass of one on the tracks. I asked my uncle and he told me that what I was seeing was bobcats and there were quite a few of them around. I haven't seen one in quite some time but they are beautiful animals.
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