The Year of the Cat
What happens when apex predators collide?
The bobcat hunted sunset’s far edge, scent marking territory as it silently stalked evening’s meal. The stealthy cat had been tracking a cottontail rabbit. Eyes, nose and ears honed on its target, the feline moved slowly forward, one step at a time, pausing patiently, crouching.
The rabbit hopped along, nibbling twigs and tender underbrush buds, unaware of the peril that approached ever closer behind him. Its whiskers twitched. It hopped, nibbled, then froze. Ears up, eyes wide, sensing danger, the cottontail’s instincts took hold.
The predator pounced, attacking its prey, ambush style. The rabbit squealed once, letting loose a solitary shriek, piercing the night with its shrill impending death notice. Then hot blood stained pristine snow as the wildcat tore the last gasp of life from furred limb with one ravenous bite to the throat. Its still steaming dinner secure in its jaws, the bobcat escaped quickly into the night, devouring his meal concealed in the relative safety of a tangled deadfall.
Carnivor appetite satiated for the moment, the bobcat covered what remained of the rabbit’s fur, skull and bones. He then scent marked the site with urine to deter scavengers in the event he managed a return to snack on what remained of the entrails. As temperatures dropped and mid-winter’s moon rose, the cat retreated to one of its nearby rock crag dens for the night.
Darkness slowly morphed into frosted mist dawn. As the sun’s first rays rose, the bobcat rose with them. He had already snared two mice and was stalking a sparrow when the mixed scents and sounds of canines and humans gave pause. One loud shot rang out. Two more quickly followed. Excited dogs began yelping. As human voice joined the chorus, the bobcat realized he was not the only small game hunter afield that morning. His own morning foray suddenly cut short, the cat quickly turned bobbed tail from tumult and silently made off.
The wily cat hunted his way deep into winter. He ate rabbits, mice, songbirds, ruffed grouse and squirrels. As February came to a close, the tom’s yowling screams successfully attracted a queen. Once they had fulfilled nature’s calling and mated, the solitary stalker returned his attention to hunting and scent marking his territorial lairs.
Marching thaws exposed winter’s snow-covered casualties, included amongst them the pungent remains of a late season hunter’s gutshot deer carcass. Under cover of darkness, the wary bobcat began gnawing free a rotting hind quarter to drag to the safety of one of his nearby dens. Fully engorged in his task, senses masked by the stench of the deer’s rotting entrails, the bobcat was caught completely off guard. Another hunter had been lured by the thawing carcass’s smell. The felid suddenly found himself confronted by a scavenging coyote.
The coyote cautiously circled cat and carcass, yellow eyed, snarling. Outsized but undaunted, the bobcat hissed back, unwilling to relinquish his newly claimed feast to the canid. As the coyote postured, the bobcat attacked. His powerful hind legs launched him high in the air. As his front quarters came down, the bobcat’s right front claw swatted, tearing tissue all the way from the lunging coyote’s left ear to his eye in the process. The two apex predators combat rolled. The coyote’s jaws snared the bobcat’s right leg as the cat sunk its teeth deep into the back of the coyote’s neck.
Wildcat on its back, the coyote let go the bobcat’s leg as it tried to shake free its foe. Seeing its opening, the wounded cat bounded free. As his opponent got to its feet, the bobcat seized the moment and sought refuge in the limbs of a nearby white pine tree. In the nick of time, as it turned out. The tumult drew company. The bobcat perched there in the tree licking its wounds, while a second coyote joined his foe and together they ravaged the deer’s rotting carcass, leaving nothing but bloody deer hide, skull and bones as the morning sun’s first rays rose.
Once the canid pair ate its fill and moved on, the bobcat descended the tree and limped back to his den to rest and tend to his wounds, stomach growling, having survived one day and begun another in the year of the cat.
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Until Our Trails Cross Again:
ADKO
About The Author
rdmonroe5
Lifelong NYS resident. Raised in Saranac Lake. Cornell graduate(ROTC). Army veteran, Airborne/Ranger qualified, 10th Mtn Div, stints in Honduras and with JTF VI. 3rd degree Black Belt; 3x cancer survivor; published writer with several featured stories in Adirondack Life Magazine. Residing in Watertown NY with wife Robin & our 3 adult children. Loving Life. Living in the Day I am in.
True to life or not, this story reads like a poem of life’s struggle to survive. Like the combatant who realizes the rules of engagement no longer apply to those who must survive the battle.
Thank you, Alan. I penned this story based on years of bobcat observation & my online research. I simply wanted to paint a realistic snapshot image of the life of the bobcat. One big question out there seems to be who would come out victorious in a bobcat-coyote fight. Since I have a healthy population of both species frequenting my land, I felt that was something I wanted to try my hand at writing a story about. From what I could gather from a multitude of online “expert” opinions, the bobcat is smaller, quicker, has the advantage of being able to tree itself, and is more aggressive. The coyote is bigger, has a somewhat stronger bite, and in a dead heat run, a little bit faster. the general consensus is that while their territories & food preferences do overlap, they each generally look to avoid confrontation. But in a fight to the death, it would be a toss-up, with the coyote having overall, due to its bigger size. a slight advantage. From what I have seen of both predators’ behavior on my land though, is that they give each other wide berth. I have also noted that the bobcats especially are solitary creatures. avoiding direct contact with humans (I have been out there within 50 yards of the bobcats at times, but I never knew it until I got back in and checked trail cams) & I suspect in a fight, if the bobcat had its way, it would break contact with the coyote as quickly as possible and take refuge in a tree, much like in my story. Life struggle allegories were an undertone, secondary to the primary intent of the story, but not unintentional. It makes me feel good as a writer that someone actually picked up on them.