Animal Tracks - Bobcat (Felis rufus or Lynx rufus)

Note: The bobcat paw photos below are from a road-killed animal. No animal was killed for these pictures. It was found dead on the side of the road. Photos taken at Walker Creek Ranch near Petaluma, California.

This story is a little long, but it details the adventures of my cat, Bones, and her two narrow escapes from a bobcat. Following the story are photos of the tracks of the bobcat and Bones. The story appears here word for word, exactly as I wrote it right after the incident. I emailed this story around to other trackers, so you may have read it before. Note: Of all the stories on this web site, this story has generaed the most responses and some of the strangest. Read on...

About an hour ago, I was sitting here checking my email with the door open and the cats running in and out to play and eat. One of the cats, Blackie, had been playing outside and he came running back inside. He ran and hid. Strange behavior, I thought. I looked outside, but saw nothing. Blackie kept acting strangely though. He sat at the door and wouldn't go outside. He was very alert and was watching something outside very intently. I thought it was the birds who were out there eating the grass seed I had placed out there for the turkeys. I didn't think anything more of it. It was just a normal day until I heard the sound that I do not ever want to hear again as long as I live. The sound of predation. The sound I heard the night my cat disappeared about two months ago and was gone so long I figured she was dead. It was a gurgling, strangling sound. I had heard it before, but it took a moment for my brain to catalog it and identify it. When I realized what it was, I was on my feet and moving toward the door. That's when I heard it again. I burst out the door and saw... nothing. Nothing, that is, until I looked to my right to the favorite perch of Bones the cat. There, scattered around on the torn up ground, were tufts of her white fur. Amidst the clumps of fur were tracks. Cat tracks. I turned the corner of the building and headed toward the deck because that's where I thought the sound had last originated from. There were tracks, but I saw nothing. I looked under the deck and saw Junior, another cat. He looked at me, but he didn't move. He looked toward the river. I noticed a disturbance in the jays over by the river access trail below the lodge. No other birds were making such a racket. I figured that's where Bones, and whatever had hold of her, must have gone. I went back up toward my cabin and grabbed a flashlight, in case I had to search under the building. Outside again, I noticed more tracks and very torn up ground heading toward the Headquarters building. There were a couple of places where the bobcat (that's what I figured it was) must have stopped to struggle with Bones, or adjust its hold on her. I ran toward the river access. There at the corner was a long drag mark. Several pieces of white fur were on the ground. I got to the steps leading to the river trail and there was the scene of a huge struggle. The ground was torn up, leaves scattered everywhere and tufts of white fur all over. The amount of fur must have been shocking because I looked at the leaves and saw blood on them. I didn't stop to examine them closer. I ran for the river. I went crashing through the brush to see what the jays were squawking about, but found no more disturbed ground or tufts of fur. I made my way back to the river access and saw several possible tracks. It had rained today, so I knew the only fresh tracks would be from Bones or the bobcat. When I hit the river bar, I saw that there were now two separate sets of tracks. Bones and the bobcat in hot pursuit. The tracks were spaced far apart and both were in an all-out race. I found no more blood and hoped that Bones would be fast enough to get away. I followed the tracks until I got to gravel and river cobble. There I lost patience and started to run while signcutting for the tracks. I went first toward the south because that's the way the tracks appeared to have turned before I lost them. I went until I came to a clear, untouched patch of sand. No tracks. I backtracked and headed north on the river bar. By this point, I was starting to lose it because I was losing time. I figured, if the bobcat had Bones, I didn't have long to find them before it killed her. I ran back up the river bar, calling Bones. (Don't know why.) Nothing. No tracks north either. I went back to the gravel, but decided they may have run back through the brush toward camp. That's where I headed. I stopped by the last set of tracks. One Bones track and a huge bobcat track, with dewclaw and everything. I took a moment to wish her swift feet and I placed a big rock in front of the bobcat track and said, "Trip and stumble so Bones can get away." I hurried back up toward the lodge. I stopped to grab a tuft of Bones' fur at the site where the big struggle had taken place. That is where I am sure Bones got out of the bobcat's grip and started running. In my panic before, I had seen blood. Now, I looked closer and saw that the "blood" was actually the underside of the wet maple leaves. The moisture turned them dark and reddish. My brain had been so intent before on the fact that a predator was trying to kill my cat, that I had actually seen blood where there was none. This gave me a little bit of hope. She was alive where I had found the last tracks and she was running. If she was injured, it probably wasn't too badly. I hoped she was able to run swiftly enough. I hurried around the lodge to the parking area and started cutting for sign. No tracks on the road or on the other river access. I went all the way down it to the river again. By this time, I knew I was too far behind. I remembered that Bones had growled at something in the brush behind me this weekend when I had sat on a log by the river to sand a woodworking project. Maybe there's a bobcat den there, I thought. If the bobcat caught her, and if it had young, that's where it would take its prey. I headed toward that spot. As I was doing this, I realized how stupid it was of me to be following a wild bobcat around, especially one that may have prey and may have young around. They will defend both. I picked up a couple pieces of driftwood and continued. I was literally prepared to fight the thing and club it to death if need be. I again signcut the perimeter of the riverbank, looking for any tracks, disturbance, fur, anything. It was almost dark and I had found nothing. I went back in the fading light to the last known tracks. All I could do was go step-by-step. The slowest method of tracking. I started out, but quickly realized that I could spend hours doing that and it might not get me very far. I kept calling for Bones, hoping she would answer. Hoping she had gotten away and was hiding in the brush. A couple times, I though I heard a faint meow, but it was drowned out by other noises - trucks on the road above, the wind, the river, the birds. I was not certain of what I was hearing. I finally gave up when it got too dark. It had been almost an hour since she was carried off. All I could do was hope that she got away. I knew it might take weeks for her to come back (if she ever did), like it did last time. She must have run far last time. I went back up to the lodge and called for Bones. I tried to get the other cat to come inside, but he wouldn't go. I went inside the lodge to get something and, when I came out, I happened to glance toward the deck. There, half hidden around the corner, was the very wet rear end of a cat. A black tail...Bones!! I called her and headed that way. She was drenched and muddy and shaking, but alive and standing. She was still really freaked out and started to run away from me, but I stopped. I knelt down and called her. She kept alertly looking all around - searching for the bobcat. Finally, she ran to me. She didn't appear to be bloody. I picked her up and her heart was racing! I hurried up to my cabin and put her inside. Knowing the bobcat must still be around and that it was still hungry, I had to get Junior, the other cat, inside. He refused to come when called, so I lured him by opening a can of the "good stuff" - the canned cat food. He knows the sound of the can opening means he's in for a treat. That got him. He came up to the stairs and I lured him inside.

Bones does not appear to have any injuries. As before, she has patches of fur missing. There is a place on her leg where all the fur is scraped off. There is a scratch mark there. Overall, she appears to be OK. She is very shaken and tired, but I think she will be OK. She is sitting by my feet, cleaning her fur.

Can you believe that? Same cat gets taken by a bobcat twice and gets away twice! Probably the same bobcat. Bones got away again. Problem is, that bobcat came right up here while I was sitting in here with the door standing wide open. Fear of people? This bobcat is bold. That's dangerous for my cats. Of course, I wasn't being noisy either. Maybe it figured there weren't any humans around. Pretty scary. So, Bones is the double miracle cat. She did it again.

On Dec. 3, after a very long day, I was driving down the dirt road toward home thinking about wildlife sightings I have had along there. When I passed the place where I had seen a bobcat recently, the thought crossed my mind that, "wouldn't it be interesting if I came around the corner down by the sewage plant and found a cougar devouring a deer right in the middle of the road." I don’t know why that particular thought came to me at that time. I could even see it in my imagination, blood dripping off the cougar’s teeth. But when I got there, I saw no cougar. Continuing down the road, I really didn't expect to see anything. I just figured it was my imagination being overly active. Then, something caught my attention out of the corner of my right eye. I hit the brakes and backed up. Whatever it was, it didn't belong there. I know every inch of that road. I thought it was a deer lying down, which seemed strange since it didn’t get up and run away. I backed up enough that my headlights illuminated it. It WAS a deer, and it was lying down. And not moving. Uh oh. There was no blood visible on it, no branch laying on it as if it had been hit by a widowmaker, no poacher's arrow sticking out of it. Nothing to indicate why there was a dead deer lying by the side of the road. It was definitely not sleeping in that position, and I couldn't see its chest rise, so it probably wasn't breathing. I got the flashlight and went over to examine the body. My first thought was that a poacher had killed it, and I was looking for gunshot wounds or arrow holes. There was some blood on the mouth, and the neck was wet with saliva (not the deer's as it turns out). No other wounds were apparent. I then looked at the ground. The deer had been dragged there. The surface showed clear drag marks. No human tracks around. Uh oh. Only one animal living near me is big enough to drag a full grown adult deer off the road like that and it was NOT the animal I wanted to meet in the foggy dark while hobbling around so soon after having surgery on my knee. I started to shine my light up into the trees and into the brush behind the deer. I found a bit of blood in the drag mark area, then a bigger spot of blood, maybe 6 inches across. Looking behind me and onto the road, there were places where hooves had dug up the ground and dirt had been kicked all over the place. It had rained a bit the day before, and none of this showed signs of rain. The tracks were fresh, and on top of the outgoing vehicle tracks I had left hours before. The deer carcass was still warm to the touch. The fur was not wet from rain. This had not been here when I had left for my appointment at 3:00p.m. It was now almost 8p.m. and fully dark. Fog closed everything in and I couldn't even see the lights from the house on top of the cliff across the river, my only neighbor. I shone my big light out into the meadow, looking for predator eye shine. There was a deer there, but it was not looking at me. It was looking at the hillside above me. (I flashed back to a very similar incident a couple months ago when two deer were in the meadow in the morning and I stopped the car and got out and walked to within 15 feet of them and took pictures, but they ignored me and intently concentrated on something on the hillside behind me. In that incident, I examined the madrone tree above the road when I got home that afternoon and found marks where something large had climbed the tree, knocking off pieces of moss. At the time, I figured it was either the bobcat or the mountain lion, the tracks both of which I had found not too far from this spot.) So, who killed the deer I had just found? Not a person. There was no arrow or gunshot wound. There were marks on the neck where it had been gripped to drag the animal off the road. There had been quite a struggle. I had inadvertently parked on top of some of the signs of this. When I went back to the car for the camera, I noticed blood on a coyote brush bush next to where I had parked. The ground under the bush was ripped up. I backed up the car and examined the road surface some more. There had been one heck of a big struggle. I thought that what killed the deer was possibly a young cougar. It may have been small enough that this doe could put up something of a fight. The angle at which the neck lay was unnatural. I think it finally managed to kill the deer by breaking its neck. But it didn't get off easy. I think I just happened to come down the road at the time it was dragging its kill off the road into the brush. I may have temporarily scared it off. After getting what photos I could in the dark with the flash, I got back in the car and left.

As I continued down the road toward home, I saw a big buck that has been in rut for the last three weeks chasing one doe out in the meadow. Another doe had been close to the sewage plant. As I drove by the buck and doe, I noticed that they were no longer looking up the hillside behind me. Of course, the buck hadn't been. He was too interested in that doe. Perhaps the cat decided to retreat until the human with the noisy car and big flashlight left. I was sure it would be back. It wouldn't leave that carcass for long.

I figured this was a good opportunity to see how a carcass progresses in the process of feeding other animals. Next day, I went up to check on it and see if anything had been eaten. It was my birthday and I got a nice surprise birthday present. I found the carcass partially buried with debris. Looking up, I saw the culprit watching me from about 20 feet away. His eyes gazed at me intently, unmoving. The only thing moving was his short tail, which kept twitching back and forth. It was not a young cougar; it was a bobcat. It surprised me that he was able to kill such a large deer. I raised the camera and got a couple still photos of him as well as a short video clip, before he melted into the brush and disappeared.

Since that day, I visited every day, once a day, to take photos of the progression and see what has changed. Although I looked carefully into the brush near the carcass, and up into the trees, I had yet to see the bobcat again. The carcass was covered up with more debris each day, so I knew he was still around.

Today, December 16, I went back to check on it again, thinking that, after 13 days and the carcass starting to smell, the cat would move on and find other prey. I didn’t expect it to stay around this long, but maybe hunting isn’t too good right now. There didn’t appear to be much missing from the carcass this time, although half the ear had been eaten. I took a couple photos and stepped back and suddenly something caught my eye. It wasn’t movement. It was a shape. Lying in the brush, about 8 feet from me, was the bobcat himself! He stared at me and looked away as if he didn’t think I was a threat. I slowly raised the camera and started taking photos of him, some with the flash and some without. I started quietly talking to him. He looked at me a couple times and I looked away and pretended to be looking at the deer. Then he would look away, as if he didn’t think I saw him. He stayed perfectly still. Only his eyes moved. I took a step closer and his eyes widened and looked directly into mine. He knew then that he had been seen. I began to very slowly raise the camera and he suddenly jumped up and disappeared. He was gone so fast, I could only listen to the crashing sounds as he jumped away through the brush. After he was gone, it hit me. I had been that close to a bobcat. Had I not moved, he probably would have stayed longer, relying on his camouflage and stillness to hide him. And he was well camouflaged. Later, looking through the photos of the deer carcass, in one of them I can see the bobcat in the brush.

Pictures of the tracks from the bobcat chase
	The bobcat track in the lower right of the photo and Bones' track in the upper left.
Close-up of the bobcat's left front foot. Note the mark from the "dewclaw" at about the 4 inch mark on the ruler. The bobcat was running and the toes spread out to give it more traction.
	The bobcat's right front foot, also showing a mark from the "dewclaw." Note the sand disks pushed back by the outside toes, indicating fast forward motion. Claw mark barely visible on the far right toe.
A set of bobcat tracks in the sand. Tracks from Bones on the right.
	Close up of a bobcat track, showing claw marks as the cat dug in to gain speed.
Bones' track, also showing claw marks and toes spread out.
	Tufts of Bones' fur at the site of torn up ground. Here was the struggle with the bobcat. A drag mark preceded this scene, where Bones was being dragged off by the bobcat. Bones got away at this point and they headed toward the river, with the bobcat in pursuit and me not far behind them.
A single bobcat toe print, with the arrow indicating a piece of Bones' fur that was carried here on the bobcat's foot.

And here is a follow-up story that happened about 2 weeks later, on April 29, 2000. Again, this is word-for-word exactly as I emailed it out. Note that I take certain risks around wildlife and I do not encourage anyone to do these things. In other words, do not try this at home! I saw it! I stalked it! I got to within 20 feet of it! The bobcat was here again! And I scared the daylights out of it. (I hope.) I went outside because it was dark and Bones had not come in yet. I was worried about her. I went out and it took a lot of calling to get her to come in. She finally appeared over by the tool shed and ran to me. I picked her up and brought her inside. As I got near my door, I used my flashlight to scan the area. I picked up the reflection from a pair of eyes over near the flagpole below the lodge and headquarters building. I thought it might be a fox, but it didn't move like a fox, and when it got up and walked, I saw that it had no tail. My arch enemy! I put Bones inside and closed the door. All cats accounted for. Now, time for the showdown. I have to defend my territory and stake my claim or the bobcat will never leave. Not that I really want it to leave. I just want it to leave my cats alone. It is a magnificent animal. But it already killed one cat back in February... Anyway, I took the flashlight and started stalking the bobcat. I hit a few leaves and broke a stick, but it stayed there because it couldn't see me. I cheated and kept the big flashlight on its face so it wouldn't see me. I had a rock in my hand to use if necessary. I couldn't have missed from 20 feet away. I carefully negotiated the step down from the trail to the area with the plants outside the lodge. Then, there was a big step down of about 1 1/2 feet. I had to kneel down and do it slowly because there were leaves below. I got down there and had another step down from the rock wall to the path. Then, a short stretch of concrete and I was on the dirt and leaves. I went slowly, keeping the light in its eyes. I got to about 25 feet and it decided to go behind the bench. Darn! I crept closer. Then, it must have caught my scent. I was about 20 feet away and it popped its head up over the back of the bench. It probably heard me breathing. It looked at me for a minute, then, it turned to leave and I gave it a boost. I shouted and yowled my most horrible "big cat" yowl. I threw the rock, which bounced downhill through the leaves. I then listened and heard the bobcat retreating down the hill toward the river. I kept up the shouting and yowling. It sounded as horrible as I could make it. I hope the cat got the idea. 'My territory!" I shouted. "Go away!" In a way, I feel bad, because bobcats aren't commonly seen. But, rare animal or no, it ate one of my cats and I have to defend my territory. The bobcat probably just thought I was a crazy human, and he's probably right, but I don't care what it thinks. I only want it to leave my cats alone. I wondered today what Junior kept meowing at. Now I know. He wouldn't have been meowing at Bones. It was the kind of meow he uses when he plays and wrestles with the other cats. Could he possibly be playing with the bobcat? Anyway, the adventure continues.
So, that's our story. Hope you have enjoyed reading it. Bones is healed from her adventure and is outside playing in the sun. Hopefully she will not encounter the bobcat again.
Update #3: November 2000. I found the bobcat tracks again. This time, it walked down the dirt road and turned off at the river access road. It didn't come near my home, but it was within easy sight from the window. Had I been looking out, I would have seen it. It was there at night though. I also found numerous bobcat territorial markings on the dirt road above the camp. It is claiming more and more of the place as its territory. Not long ago, I ran into the Fish and Game warden and he told me that he'd had to shoot cougar that was killing livestock. Inside its stomach, he found the remains of a domestic cat. Apparently, it is not uncommon for the large wild cats to prey on our domestic pet cats. There may be more to this story yet.
Update #4: December 29, 2000. I found more fresh scent posts on the road above the camp. Here are the pictures of the best one.
	The bobcat scat was next to a scrape area in the dirt. This appeared to be fairly fresh as the scrape hadn't been rained on and it had rained in the last couple days. The coin is a penny for size comparison. It is 3/4 inch across. This scat is typical cat shape. There are sometimes deeper constrictions in the scat though. This one has a pointed end on the right, which is usually a trait seen in canine scat.
The scrape is visible in the lower portion of this photo. It is said that cats scrape in the direction they are facing or travelling. I don't know how true that is. In any case, there were two of these scent posts on the road and both were very fresh. Bones the cat had been following me on my walk, but she had refused to come up the trail to this area. There may have been other sign that she found and I missed. There were three older mounds like this, but the two fresh ones told me the bobcat had been here very recently.

Update #5: December 3, 2003 - December 16, 2003. The bobcat adventures continue....

On Dec. 3, after a very long day, I was driving down the dirt road toward home thinking about wildlife sightings I have had along there. When I passed the place where I had seen a bobcat recently, the thought crossed my mind that, "wouldn't it be interesting if I came around the corner down by the sewage plant and found a cougar devouring a deer right in the middle of the road." I don’t know why that particular thought came to me at that time. I could even see it in my imagination, blood dripping off the cougar’s teeth. But when I got there, I saw no cougar. Continuing down the road, I really didn't expect to see anything. I just figured it was my imagination being overly active. Then, something caught my attention out of the corner of my right eye. I hit the brakes and backed up. Whatever it was, it didn't belong there. I know every inch of that road. I thought it was a deer lying down, which seemed strange since it didn’t get up and run away. I backed up enough that my headlights illuminated it. It WAS a deer, and it was lying down. And not moving. Uh oh. There was no blood visible on it, no branch laying on it as if it had been hit by a widowmaker, no poacher's arrow sticking out of it. Nothing to indicate why there was a dead deer lying by the side of the road. It was definitely not sleeping in that position, and I couldn't see its chest rise, so it probably wasn't breathing. I got the flashlight and went over to examine the body. My first thought was that a poacher had killed it, and I was looking for gunshot wounds or arrow holes. There was some blood on the mouth, and the neck was wet with saliva (not the deer's as it turns out). No other wounds were apparent. I then looked at the ground. The deer had been dragged there. The surface showed clear drag marks. No human tracks around. Uh oh. Only one animal living near me is big enough to drag a full grown adult deer off the road like that and it was NOT the animal I wanted to meet in the foggy dark while hobbling around so soon after having surgery on my knee. I started to shine my light up into the trees and into the brush behind the deer. I found a bit of blood in the drag mark area, then a bigger spot of blood, maybe 6 inches across. Looking behind me and onto the road, there were places where hooves had dug up the ground and dirt had been kicked all over the place. It had rained a bit the day before, and none of this showed signs of rain. The tracks were fresh, and on top of the outgoing vehicle tracks I had left hours before. The deer carcass was still warm to the touch. The fur was not wet from rain. This had not been here when I had left for my appointment at 3:00p.m. It was now almost 8p.m. and fully dark. Fog closed everything in and I couldn't even see the lights from the house on top of the cliff across the river, my only neighbor. I shone my big light out into the meadow, looking for predator eye shine. There was a deer there, but it was not looking at me. It was looking at the hillside above me. (I flashed back to a very similar incident a couple months ago when two deer were in the meadow in the morning and I stopped the car and got out and walked to within 15 feet of them and took pictures, but they ignored me and intently concentrated on something on the hillside behind me. In that incident, I examined the madrone tree above the road when I got home that afternoon and found marks where something large had climbed the tree, knocking off pieces of moss. At the time, I figured it was either the bobcat or the mountain lion, the tracks both of which I had found not too far from this spot.) So, who killed the deer I had just found? Not a person. There was no arrow or gunshot wound. There were marks on the neck where it had been gripped to drag the animal off the road. There had been quite a struggle. I had inadvertently parked on top of some of the signs of this. When I went back to the car for the camera, I noticed blood on a coyote brush bush next to where I had parked. The ground under the bush was ripped up. I backed up the car and examined the road surface some more. There had been one heck of a big struggle. I thought that what killed the deer was possibly a young cougar. It may have been small enough that this doe could put up something of a fight. The angle at which the neck lay was unnatural. I think it finally managed to kill the deer by breaking its neck. But it didn't get off easy. I think I just happened to come down the road at the time it was dragging its kill off the road into the brush. I may have temporarily scared it off. After getting what photos I could in the dark with the flash, I got back in the car and left. As I continued down the road toward home, I saw a big buck that has been in rut for the last three weeks chasing one doe out in the meadow. Another doe had been close to the sewage plant. As I drove by the buck and doe, I noticed that they were no longer looking up the hillside behind me. Of course, the buck hadn't been. He was too interested in that doe. Perhaps the cat decided to retreat until the human with the noisy car and big flashlight left. I was sure it would be back. It wouldn't leave that carcass for long. I figured this was a good opportunity to see how a carcass progresses in the process of feeding other animals. Next day, I went up to check on it and see if anything had been eaten. It was my birthday and I got a nice surprise birthday present. I found the carcass partially buried with debris. Looking up, I saw the culprit watching me from about 20 feet away. His eyes gazed at me intently, unmoving. The only thing moving was his short tail, which kept twitching back and forth. It was not a young cougar; it was a bobcat. It surprised me that he was able to kill such a large deer. I raised the camera and got a couple still photos of him as well as a short video clip, before he melted into the brush and disappeared. Since that day, I visited every day, once a day, to take photos of the progression and see what has changed. Although I looked carefully into the brush near the carcass, and up into the trees, I had yet to see the bobcat again. The carcass was covered up with more debris each day, so I knew he was still around. Today, December 16, I went back to check on it again, thinking that, after 13 days and the carcass starting to smell, the cat would move on and find other prey. I didn’t expect it to stay around this long, but maybe hunting isn’t too good right now. There didn’t appear to be much missing from the carcass this time, although half the ear had been eaten. I took a couple photos and stepped back and suddenly something caught my eye. It wasn’t movement. It was a shape. Lying in the brush, about 8 feet from me, was the bobcat himself! He stared at me and looked away as if he didn’t think I was a threat. I slowly raised the camera and started taking photos of him, some with the flash and some without. I started quietly talking to him. He looked at me a couple times and I looked away and pretended to be looking at the deer. Then he would look away, as if he didn’t think I saw him. He stayed perfectly still. Only his eyes moved. I took a step closer and his eyes widened and looked directly into mine. He knew then that he had been seen. I began to very slowly raise the camera and he suddenly jumped up and disappeared. He was gone so fast, I could only listen to the crashing sounds as he jumped away through the brush. After he was gone, it hit me. I had been that close to a bobcat. Had I not moved, he probably would have stayed longer, relying on his camouflage and stillness to hide him. And he was well camouflaged. Later, looking through the photos of the deer carcass, in one of them I can see the bobcat in the brush. I will post the photos of the bobcat and the deer carcass soon and provide a link on this page.

More bobcats?	March/April 2005
I have seen four bobcats in the last month. All sightings were near the same area. I suspect there may be a den nearby. The cats I have seen have all been small and young. The first one was sitting in the middle of the dirt road as I drove home. I came down and hill and there it was. I slowed down and tried to grab my camera, but I was too late. the cat bounded off the road and into the tall grass. I watched it disappear. A week later, I was about 1/4 mile further on the same road when I saw another bobcat. This one was very small. It ran out of the brush and tore across the road and into the brush on the other side. It then made a zigzag and went back onto the dirt road again and ran off down the road until it was out of sight. Later that same week, after a rain, I was walking the dirt road and found some fresh bobcat tracks. I didn't see the cat, but knew it had been there since the rain stopped that morning. The next day, I saw the bobcat in this same area on my way home from work. I have looked around the area, but have yet to locate the den.....


Front paw of a bobcat. Claws are not visible - they are retractable. Front feet are larger than hind feet. Front foot is usually wider than it is long. Notice the slightly different shape of the heel pad.		Hind paw of a bobcat. Notice the overall shape of the foot is longer than it is wide. Toes spread out when the animal is walking, but the hind track is usually smaller than the front.

Canine vs. Feline tracks (Is it a cat or a dog?)