This work is supported by the generous backers who adore my cat stories at Patreon.com/amberunmasked and they also get first access to what’s happening with my books and podcast.
Where We Left Off:
Oliver and Gus discovered a long rusty chain with a hook emerging from the eroding landscape around Fort Winchester.
Bobcats!:
Oliver and Gus are “altered” domestic felines (neutered), but they can still sense when other felines are in the mood to mate. I believe that’s why more roaming cats are being absolutely brazen about walking through the Winchester-Nabu estate. It may also explain why February became Bobcat Month over here. This case has a lot of images and a video!
Thanks to the snow, it was quite easy to see the many wildlife tracks of visitors including a lot of deer, a coyote, and a bobcat (or two). Those free-roaming neighborhood cats have also left their tracks. One set of those tracks is up for debate (collage titled Set 3). I uploaded the images to iNaturalist and labeled them as “bobcat,” but another user, who sounded much more confident and informed in his comment, said they were coyote tracks or some other canid of that size. I changed the listing because there is also a coyote on the trailcam, but I’m not totally confident in that set’s identification.
My yoga friend and meditation teacher, Julie, lives farther north where it’s still rural. She told me that there’s an area called Bobcat Alley up there. As of 2018, The Nature Conservancy owned it which is great news because all the land around here is being gobbled up for developments.
Are We Seeing More Bobcats?
This is the main question we have at the detective agency. Are there more bobcats or are we getting lucky that the trailcam is set up in a good place for sightings?
Oliver wanted to reach out to an FBI contact to see if we could get that kind of software law enforcement (and expensive attorneys) uses to measure the height and other dimensions of a subject when they are at different distances or angles on a recording. I was able to do this manually in GIMP with one of the black bears because there was an easy marker (a tree) to compare it against and the bear stood in the exact same spot. The images we want to compare are when there’s a bobcat close to the camera versus when one is walking along the border of the woods.
2023 kittens:
“We had evidence of a litter of bobcat kittens in 2023,” Ollie said. “There were at least two babies that barely showed up on trailcam1.”
“Of course we remember that,” I said to Oliver. “It was a momentous occasion. Our first sighting of bobcat babies!”
As I thought about the memory and the excitement I felt seeing those images for the first time, I realized that trailcam2 could have audio, but I’ve never turned that setting on. Maybe I should before bobcat mating season is over.
Gus diligently tracked the area from below Fort Winchester to The Pit then back to the path where the wildlife walks and followed a scent into the woods. What we noticed from the tracks is the bobcats must be coming from the Fire Trail or coming from the front of the house and navigating around Gnome Grove thereby bypassing trailcam1 at the fort. We haven’t had any bobcats show up on that camera in a long time. My first sighting was before we had the trailcams. Gus and I witnessed a large bobcat walking through the yard and going to the Fire Trail.
All of that means that yes, we have more bobcats if we assume that those babies survived and are in this area. Bobcats reach sexual maturity around 12 months for females, and 24 months for males. This matters because it would mean that we aren’t catching them on camera because of mating season; they’re too young—that is, if we are seeing that particular litter on the camera this year. It could easily be the mother and/or father of that litter coming to this area because it served them well in the past.
“I think I should be on patrol more,” Gus chimed in. “I can’t see all of the activity from the observation deck or the roof. I really should be at the fort.”
“Gus, I’m not letting you out unsupervised in the dark,” I said.
Narrowing Down Identification:
Since some of the images and videos are clear, we know that we have presence of Lynx rufus, bobcats. In the past, we’ve examined evidence (lots of scat) and gathered information from local critters about magical beings that are a lot like bobcats. Those cryptids we began to call pancelots (a cross between a black panther and ocelot) which were closely tied to the cryptids known as pumapards.
Just to be certain that we are looking at bobcats in this dossier, reports were sent to the state through their online system. Response time used to be a lot faster. It’s been weeks since the February 4, 2024 report and they still haven’t responded with confirmation. The environmental team there as probably been downsized, but that’s entirely my own speculation.
Case Findings:
Although we do not have confirmation back from the state, Oliver and Gus feel confident in stating that these images are Lynx rufus, aka bobcats. We believe the recordings are not one animal. We think there’s at least one male and one female. This particular case of identification may be closed, however, we will continue monitoring. Maybe we’ll get lucky and have more kittens this year.
Case Status: Closed
Resources:
Novak, S. (2018) A nearby place called Bobcat Alley and how it’s become safer for its namesake, nj.com. Available at: https://www.nj.com/warren/2018/03/bobcat_alley_new_jersey_conservation.html (Accessed: 28 February 2024).