This actually was written yesterday along with the Cuneo issue, but I broke it out to the next day for the purpose of my vlog.

 

BOBCAT KITTEN RESCUE ATTEMPT

 

Only hope keeps me from utter despair this morning.

 

July 21, 2017 3:47 PM: I get a call from a Florida Wildlife Conservation Biologist who says she’s on the scene of a “confirmed bobcat report.” She says they were called there by the manger of the building where the tiny waif was pawing at his reflection in the glass doors. Workers had tried to capture the kitten in a box, but had scared him off into the high grass. The FWC texted me a photo to confirm that it was a bobcat at the door.

 

Heart and soul launch into overdrive as I take down all of the particulars and then relay the message to Jamie, to see if she wants to go. Since it is such a small kitten we figure we can handle it alone, so we load up the Tundra and head an hour and a half away. By the time we hit downtown Tampa, it’s rush hour traffic almost all the way to the site, so we don’t arrive until 5:35 PM. On the way, I’ve called the office manager to gather more details and tell him we are heading his way.

 

I ask if we set humane traps if he is willing to check and reset them but he checks with his boss who says we can’t do it on his property. They will, however, allow us to dig around under bushes around their property to see if we can net the kitten.

 

Starting where the cat was last seen, Jamie and I spread out so we have two lines of sight toward the same area between us. What one might miss, the other may catch. It’s been raining, so we are crawling on all fours, digging through thick hedges, and having to answer nosey bystanders who want to know if we are chasing a leopard, or if we will come take care of their feral cat problems.

 

Without discussing it, we both gravitate to the area between the office and the six lane highway out front. The FWC biologist had told me that 3 days ago she saw a dead bobcat in the middle of the highway, but that a few hours later, it was gone. She said that she had rolled by slowly, to be sure the cat was dead, but didn’t know what had happened to the body. Apparently, the mother bobcat had been a common visitor in the area, and the workers knew her from afar, but they didn’t know that she had kittens.

 

Jamie was raised by bobcats and she speaks bobcat fluently. She knows the little chirps they make and the guttural little sounds that mothers and babies share. I hear her calling out to the kitten and I hear a lot of replies, but the ones I’m hearing are all in the tree tops. Mockingbirds LOVE the sounds that bobcats make because it’s fully within their repertoire to mimic them exactly. I can’t tell you how many times I have gone searching for a bobcat, only to find a bird.

 

Jamie says she could hear the bobcat though. She has amazing senses of hearing, smell, eyesight and touch. It’s kind of supernatural. By contrast, I’m old, wearing contact lenses, that are causing my eyes to ache because of the sweaty salt that has caked them already. My hearing is going too, but I do still have an amazing sense of touch. I think I could tell you how many stitches in every seam of my clothing.

 

I can tell from Jamie’s launch into stalk mode that she’s seen or heard something in the thick swatch of grass, cattails, weeds and trees that create a border between the parking lot and the highway. It’s that area you always see along roads that was built for drainage and during the wet season is usually full of water and alligators. Jamie is now fully engulfed in the foliage, but I can catch glimpses of her. She’s spotted the bobcat and is trying to net him, but there is no room to maneuver the net.

 

The kitten starts to come out of a fist size hole in the brush. I see just the nose and eyes, but he sees me and ducks back into his little tunnel. There is another tiny opening a little further to the north, and the nose appears there, but again, the kitten sees me and ducks