GALLERY: Bobcats spotted in Oakridge backyard
CALGARY – A family of bobcats have made themselves right at home in a quiet backyard on the southwest edge of the city.
Sheila Foster and her husband started seeing the mother bobcat two years ago, when it brought a litter of three kittens through her yard in Oakridge.
The cats continually came back, nesting under a tree. This year, the bobcat showed up with a new litter of four.
“My parrot instinctively makes an awful screeching sound when it sees a cat. So when I heard that the other day, I knew the cats were back,” says Foster.
One of the kittens, however, disappeared over the last month. Foster figures a magpie or a crow may have carried it away.
The cats spent most of the day in Foster’s backyard on July 27, playing with a fake grass carpet, throwing small pinecones in the air and roughhousing with one another.
Fish and Wildlife officers have been notified, and asked Foster not to disturb the bobcats, which they say pose no threat to humans. Conservation officers suggest the mother will raise the kittens in sheltered backyards like Foster’s until they’re big enough for her to take them back into the wild.
“Absolutely no threat to anyone except those pesky squirrels,” says Foster, who welcomes the convenient wildlife viewing through her back patio window.
Bobcats aren’t entirely unusual in the Calgary area.
On Sunday, a bobcat spent a lazy afternoon relaxing in the cool grass of a backyard near Fish Creek Park.
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