Photo by Amy Howard
My friend Dori power walks A1A every day. One day, she power walked into the GTM Reserve to sound the alarm that a large, predatorial cat was on the loose. From her description, we quicky diagnosed it as a bobcat and were delighted to hear it was out there. But Dori considered it a danger. I assured Dori that I’ve lived near bobcats my whole life and never heard of them attacking a human. Dori said, “Well, it might attack me.” She said it was even eyeing her. Dori is quite petite, so I had to concede she had more to worry about than most people.
To prove her point, I invited Dori to have her picture taken with the taxidermied bobcat at the GTM Visitor Center. She felt yucky from her exercise, so she came back on another day dressed for a photo shoot. It was such a great way to show people what a bobcat looks like compared to a human.
When looking for pictures of bobcats on the internet, I stumbled across this video of a bobcat wailing. It changed my life! I’ve heard that noise at night so many times and thought it was a baby crying. I so wish I had seen this happening when I was a kid. Then I would have realized bobcats were in my vicinity many more times than my eyes could see. And I wouldn’t have had so many worried nights about babies.