Seventeen-year-old Jade Culshaw wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her beloved pet cat Penny and she isn’t ready to view the heartbreaking caught on tape moment of the last seconds of Penny’s life.
On Monday morning, Penny was torn away from the front porch of their Country Hills home in Calgary by a bobcat.
“On the doorbell camera, my grandma and mom saw the bobcat cornered my cat before getting to it. I can’t watch the video but the bobcat dragged my cat off the deck and Penny tried to fight it off,” Culshaw said.
“The bobcat took a giant chunk out of her side and it took off her skin, her fur.”
Penny was found lifeless in a neighbor’s yard, across the street from their home.
“Penny was my best friend, my favorite fur baby,” Culshaw said.
“It’s definitely hurtful to think my cat is gone. I’ve had her for five years and there’s not much you can do with a bobcat coming right up to your front step.”
Bobcats are considered ambush predators. Penny didn’t have a chance, as she was no match for the other feline. Culshaw’s mom Gwyn Hutchison said she is haunted by the video.
“I wish I never saw it. It’s sad and hard to process and scary that a bobcat can come right up at our front door and killed her,” Hutchison said.
According to statistics from the City of Calgary, bobcat sightings from March of this year are almost double what they were in March 2021. There were 114 in 2021 and 223 in 2022.
Calgary naturalist Brian Keating loves documenting these animals in the wild.
He said there’s no question they are a stunning species, but knows how ferocious they can be.
“All wildcats are honed, evolutionary killing machines.”
“Bobcats are twice the size of a house cat, so their prey base would be a housecat. It’s a small wonderful piece of protein from the bobcat’s perspective and they will take a creature smaller than themselves as they are aggressive carnivores,” Keating said.
Calgary does have a bylaw to keep cats restricted the the owner’s property, but it’s recommended they stay in doors. April is when bobcats are giving birth and training their babies how to hunt and kill.