Cat in our back yard

Here is a snapshot of a cat in our back yard. Pelts don't bring much $ now that it is chic to degrade fur wearers. Still since we have a breeding population on and near our property I might choose to thin out the population some in favor of survivability of bobwhite quail chicks and such. Wife got off two shots (digicam) and I let it go seeing as how it went out of sight before I had a chance to grab a gun. I don't have a need to kill everything that comes along but... we have feral cats every so often and between them and these bobcats the quail population is struggling to keep its numbers.

Oh well, Bob, next time. Now if I had put out the new beaver traps (yes those are back and felling trees) maybe under cover of snow the bobcat would have managed to get caught by one.

OK, I notice that it is hard to get the perspective with no "yardstick" in the picture. This bobcat is larger than the largest "house-cat" I have ever seen.

What a beautiful creature... I could easily tolerate a bobcat over a ferrel house cat any day.
I bought a live trap 2 weeks ago to reduce the population of half ferrel cats that have wiped out the rabbits and play havoc with the killdeer.
One down and the main one I dislike the most to go.

We live in a rural area only a mile from a highway intersection and it seems we are as far out of civilization as folks DUMPING unwanted animals think is appropriate as we are constantly having animals dumped in this area.

I have a don't ask don't tell policy with feral cats. I don't ask if I can shoot them and I don't tell them I am shooting them. What would I do with a bunch of live trapped cats? Bait a trot line? Feed the coyotes? So called shelters employ wholesale euthanasia to try to keep up with the numbers of cats they get and can't place. Why go to the time and trouble to haul a cat to a shelter to be killed?

I have a neighbor a half mile west of me who takes in stray cats but does not spay or neuter them and lets them proliferate unchecked. There is no cat shortage around her house. I have another neighbor about a half mile south who has a breeding population with no spading or neutering BUT he works hard to place his surplus kittens in adoptive homes and does rather well at it. He tells me to not worry about his cats. He says if they stray all the way to my house and stake out my wife's bird feeder to shoot them but it has never happened. I appreciate his track record placing kittens. The neatest cat a friend of my wife has ever had was one of his kittens that I played match maker for.

Now as to the beauty of the bobcat. Right on! They are nifty creatures but...when they overpopulate in a given area they tend to unbalance the balance of nature as regards Kill Deer, quail, and such. We also get cougars (AKA puma, mountain lion, panther) around here. Had one cross the dam of the back yard pond and a juvenile playing in the back yard.

As to the craftyness of feral cats... There was one that used to slink around the outskirts of the bird feeder area at my mom's house in winter when birds would heavily populate the area near the feeder. I saw this same cat three winters in a row. It was very wary and did not frequently present a clear shot, hence its lasting 3 winters living off the land. It sure had survival instincts and skills and deserved credit for making it in hare conditions. I never saw it except in winter, mostly if there was at least some snow. I figure when food was easier to get it stayed out of sight in the woods and was only driven out by hunger when there was snow. That pattern suggests it ate rodents which denned up when there was snow cover.

Its capital offense... killing the little birds my mom and wife were feeding. I got a look at its silhouette with only a little prairie grass in the way and that was that, one less feral cat and many many more little birds.

Now if only the pumas and bobcats could do something useful like eat the beaver!!!!!!!!!

Pat

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Originally Posted by Pat

Now if only the pumas and bobcats could do something useful like eat the beaver!!!!!!!!!

Pat

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Speaking of eat the beaver, a neighbour's brother is a trapper and trapped 5 large and 2 small beaver earlier in the winter. The pelts he kept. The carcasses got thrown out to the river's edge for the local eagle population - keeps them healthy and happy!
YouTube - Juvenile Bald Eagles Feeding on a Beaver Carcass 0406

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I have a don't ask don't tell policy with feral cats. I don't ask if I can shoot them and I don't tell them I am shooting them. What would I do with a bunch of live trapped cats? Bait a trot line? Feed the coyotes? So called shelters employ wholesale euthanasia to try to keep up with the numbers of cats they get and can't place. Why go to the time and trouble to haul a cat to a shelter to be killed?

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Although I live in the country, its also a residential area meaning that I have neighbors... shooting them with my .45 or my 16 ga is not an option... LOL