Bobcat!

The quiet of the summer night was interrupted by an eerie sound.  The Border collies went on high alert and sounded their territorial barks which echoed off the wooded hillsides of our farms.  The high-pitched cry of the nocturnal visitor reverberated up and down the valley, growing closer and closer and louder by the minute.  Intervals of only a minute or two interrupted this unwelcomed nighttime serenade, making it next to impossible for humans or dogs to fall back to sleep.

The next morning, both Mike and I tried to figure out what sort of animal had come calling to Deitschland Farm.  We had never heard a bobcat and weren’t sure what they sounded like.  Some folks told us later they sound like a baby crying.  What we heard was hard to describe in words, but we were sure we had never experienced anything like it before.  Normal summer sounds on our farms include the typical scrapping of wandering raccoons, the twittering of screech owls, and the booming hoots of great horned owls, accompanied by plenty of chirping crickets and bull frogs booming in the darkness.  These noises rarely set off the dogs.  But this intruder was different, and I wasn’t sure that I was thrilled that it had decided to spend time on our farms.

Every evening for several weeks, I could set the clock by this night stalker.  Three o’clock in the morning I would hear its faint cry grow louder and louder as it walked along the stream bank, and soon the dogs would answer back.  I think they were as nervous about this new noisemaker as I was.

One late evening I was waiting for the dogs to finish their “yard work” before turning in for the night.  They began circling our large pine tree and suddenly I was being rushed at by an unseen shadow.  My mind tried to compute what was racing toward me, swiftly past me, and into the night.  I remember screaming at the dogs to stop the chase, at the same time wondering what stray cat or oversized cottontail had just sped past me.  A chill ran down my spine as I kenneled the dogs and welcomed the safe feeling of being back inside of our home.

Could this have been the bobcat, surprised into a madcap sprint toward the only human standing between the dogs and the safety of the woods?  It certainly sounded bigger and faster than anything I could fathom as it rushed by.  While I never saw it, I could feel it and heard it running.  It did sound like a rabbit or raccoon.  It surged past me in a rush of paws and wind.  I decided it was time to ask some of my farm neighbors about the likelihood of a bobcat settling down in Berks County.  A few confirmed that they had heard one, and some said there were probably more in the area.  Some even said there had been a few bobcats seen by local hunters.

I recalled an interview I had conducted with a Pennsylvania Game Commission biologist when I was a member of the House Game and Fisheries Committee.  The topic was bobcats and the surveys that were being conducted to study these feline predators.  I was intrigued by these wild cats that generally inhabit counties far north of the Blue Mountain and the valley where we farm in the southeastern part of our state.  Since they became a protected game species in 1970, however, their numbers and range have increased.

So, having a bobcat move in was not impossible.  Loss of habitat due to development and maturing forest could have driven this bobcat to our agricultural area.  I decided to get more information by going to the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s website and learned that our state’s bobcat is also known as the bay Iynx, wildcat, red lynx and swamp tiger.  It's scientific name is Lynx rufus, and it is closely related to the Canada lynx, which is not found in Pennsylvania.

Like other members of the cat family, bobcats rely on their sharp senses of sight, smell and hearing to survive as hunters.  A mature bobcat averages about a yard in length, from head to a stubby, six-inch tail.  They generally weigh 15 to 20 pounds, but some can get to be 35 pounds.  Their gray-brown fur, with dark spots and bars, gives it natural camouflage in its normal habitat of woodland and brush.  It is a swift runner thanks to strong back legs that are longer than its front legs.  These strong limbs propel the bobcat when chasing down its quarry, climbing trees, or when swimming through creeks.

I was reassured when I learned that bobcats generally dine on mice, wood rats, shrews, squirrels, chipmunks, birds, rabbits and an occasional porcupine, mink, muskrat, skunk, fish, frog, or fox if the opportunity presents itself.  They might even tackle a sick, weak or crippled deer, and are known to feed on carcasses of whitetails that starved during winter or died of other causes.

I look at our hollow tree stumps, rock outcroppings, and stream bottoms and wonder if they now serve as dens and hunting territories for a new farm cat.  Bobcats, like farmers, have been negatively impacted by development.  Both of us have lost land that we need to survive.  Maybe our part of Penn’s woods will be adopted by this elusive wildcat.  Our farms already have one “Wildcat” living here since Emilie returned home as a Kansas State University graduate in 2006.  Could be this cat feels right at home! 

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