Making Bobcats feel at home?

Two or three times over the decades I've seen what must have been bobcat tracks in the snow but I have never seen a bobcat. Last evening just before dusk I was sitting on the patio and heard a noise, looked around and a strange looking animal had hopped out of the weeds at the edge of the yard and was slowly approaching. It stopped maybe 15 yards away, partially hidden by a clump of iris. About the size maybe of a large fox, but definitely not a fox.

I went quiet and still and it took a few slow steps into full view where upon it sat down and started watching me back. This went on for probably 10 minutes, neither of us moving a single muscle. Finally the woman here drove up and got out of her car. The cat noticed this of course and looked that way but still didn't move. I held up a palm to indicate stop and a finger over the mouth to indicate quiet but the woman yelled WHAT? The cat ran off.

It is so cool to have this new neighbor, should really help control the rabbit problem in my gardens. Any ideas on how to make it feel welcome? Maybe put out a can of tuna or something for it once in awhile?

I am delighted when we get wild animals in the area.  At my current location we have Bobcats, fox, and a variety of other creatures.  I once sites a Mountain Lion in our region. I do not feed them.  I do not feel it is in their best interest to become dependent on humans.  I suppose, if it was a particularly harsh winter, I might set up a feeding station well away from my home site. But, I would give that a great deal of thought first.

Mark, yeah, bobcats are cool.  That bobcat IS home.  You don't have to encourage it to stay.  They have a small territory, especially the females, and will not go far as long as there is food.  Even if the food supply shrinks, and they move away, the food supply will grow back, and they will be back.

It's really important to never, ever feed a wild animal.  Mainly because the type of food and the food levels at different times of year trigger important functions in animals, such as fur shedding to be cooler in summer, or fur growing to be ready for winter, or if there's not much food it won't have as many babies at once, or if there's a lot of food it will have more babies.   But if it has more babies because you've been feeding it, then those babies may not have enough food.  Natural food is what its body relies on to be healthy, not our food, not food we bring in that isn't local.

It's really important to be able to survive with existing food levels.  It stays in shape by hunting, it learns about its environment and the other wild animals it must coexist with.  It gets its immune system built up by what it eats locally, and shouldn't give up eating native food because it's getting human food.

It also isn't fair to encourage a bobcat (or any wild animal for that matter) to stay in a territory that is overlapping with other animals' territories if those animals have already duked it out and established territories.  We have a fox couple that once a year becomes a fox family and will get into fights with the local bobcat.  They have worked it out, and manage to overlap, but the cameras have shown us that although the bobcat fought hard in the moment of that territory establishing, it didn't hang around as much while the foxes were raising babies.  And that's only fair to the foxes, because they, too, are great hunters of rodents.  The bobcat didn't entirely leave, and shows up more now that the fox babies have grown up and moved on.  


There are plenty of animal characters around to be worthy of living with.  These animals are so much more aware of us than we are of them, and about their environment, don't even worry about them.  Mother Nature has had it figured out for eons, so this is how we coexist with them.

:-)

Also, don't underestimate what a bobcat will kill for a meal.  We found one standing over a teenaged size deer it killed.  I once saw a bobcat passing by a herd of about 5 deer, and two of the deer went up on their hind legs, so they took that bobcat as a threat.   That means bobcats will go after any animal or pet that could be pretty good sized.  I wouldn't trust them around a small child.  Even though they tend to eat packrats and rabbits,  if they find an opportunity, they will take it.

As much as we'd like bobcats to be interested in us, when they stop and look at us they are just judging when will it be safe to turn and walk away without getting attacked from behind.  Bobcats are loners, so they don't even want to hang around with each other, let alone us.

It is also taken as a threat if we stare them in the eye.  That's true of feral cats and some housecats if they seem touchy.  For humans it's a sign of trust, for cats it means, "I'm going to attack you."   So if you don't want to seem like a threat to them, don't meet their eyes, look down and to the side.  This can be important when confronted with a mountain lion as well.  While we may think we want to seem like a big threat to them, we don't want them to be put in a position where they think they have to defend themselves from a threat.  All we really want to seem to them is that we are too much work to be a meal, so we take off a jacket, swing it over our heads to look bigger an badder, wear a whistle, load a personal alarm app on your phone.

I just heard of a study where they played several sounds to mountain lions to see which one annoyed them the most.  The winner:  Human voices.   So either start reciting the Gettysburg Address, or start singing the National Anthem, and hit that high note!  They hate music.

No I wouldn't ever feed it as a habit. Just wondered if maybe a can of tuna once a month or so just to make it fell welcome. Lots for it to eat here already, especially rabbits.

Not really sure if I directly met it's stare or not, probably at least some but I didn't feel any anxiety from it, more curiosity.  I think if the woman hadn't spooked it, it might have come even closer. I'm on the edge of a state owned hunting property, four or five thousand acres of rough terrain, lots of woods and scrub. Most of it is far too dense and rough for most so called hunters to ever access, I might possibly have been the first human it had ever seen.  Maybe it sneaks across my yard a lot and harvests the rabbits in the more open fields across the road, I hope so.

I have lots and lots of coyotes too and love hearing them at night. There are especially vocal in the winter. There must be hundreds of them within a few miles but I have only seen them two or three times. I think that's cause they are still wild, not like the suburban ones that are easily seen any time along the roads closer to towns.  

I agree with Cristo Balete - wild animals that become too familiar with humans usually end up dead. The bobcat may not be a danger to you if you look sufficiently big and strong, but I live in an area known for the largest number of cougar/human interactions in North America, and the usual response of the Animal Control people is to kill them. The best way to prevent that is to only observe them when they can't see you, such as with a trail cam.

This is even true of deer. I've read of deer killing dogs and one can certainly hurt a human. I make a point of "chasing" them out of my way (usually just clapping my hands and using my scary voice) so that they know they should avoid me.

In most jurisdictions, it is illegal to feed wild animals. In many jurisdictions, that includes not managing your compost/garbage to be animal proof.

That's SO cool! I just saw one yesterday morning for the first time too. It didn't stick around after I moved to the window to take a picture. It took it as a threat and crouched. So I got video of it heading back into the woods. No idea if it's new this year and if I changed something to make it think it would walk across my back yard and feel at home.

My sister commented that it was a good thing I wasn't trying to keep animals. Yes or I need serious dogs! But I knew that already for the bears.

I have a herd of deer too. I consider us adjacent. I don't feed or encourage them so they don't come to me or run when they see me. But when I'm outside working and move in their direction, they take off. It's working for us this year. And I've enjoyed watching the babies grow up, antlers grow, etc.

Our local bobcats will move so quietly through the woods, but when the crows detect them they will perch in the trees above them and make a horrible racket while following them around...