Bill m-n - when weve completely upended mother nature by planting copious amounts of wxotci plantings and taken away habitat for native wildlife and plants then you can no longer play the mother nature card. i strongly encourage everyone to take a stewardship approach to gardening. if you like norway spruce so much - why not just move to Norway? if you want to be in north america then please try to support North American ecosystems. And please stop killing just because someone ate your shrub. they’re hunghungry because you took their land and food. Sandra, You've taken a 'Shoot first and ask questions later' approach by coming onto a public forum and accusing people that you don't even know. The people here for the most part are the most conscientious people I know where nature and conservation is concerned. Why do you just lump everyone into the same bag and figure your job is done? There are people here that have dedicated their lives, working the forefront in the battle for conservation. And where did I say anything about killing? Killing is nature's way. It's how things survive. The weak and sick get thinned out leaving room in the gene pool for only the best and healthiest. It you want things to change, then get together with people that are doing the same and help them to achieve the same common ends. That's what we do.

Maureen, I am glad you and the furbabies are safe after your encounter with the bobcat. I did get a chance to watch one for about 20 minutes this fall in the forest until he winded me and then slowly slunk away. I was struck by his grace and wild beauty. My next encounter of the wild kind was about a month ago, also in the forest, with a mother bear and two cubs. The wind was in our faces so the mother bear didn't smell or notice us until she was about 50 yards away. When she did finally recognize us she hurried away with her cubs following. My latest encounter was three nights ago in the early evening when Dave and I were sitting on our couch watching TV. We heard a loud crash outside the window behind the couch. I stepped out on the back screened porch and flipped the lights on. About 5 feet away from the porch was a bear with my bottle of fish emulsion in his mouth. It was hard to say who was more surprized, me or the bear! About this time Rosie, the wonder dog, decided to join me on the porch. She spotted the bear and let out her best hound dog bark and the bear took off! Unfortunately he didn't see the fence and hit it going full stride! The bear bounced back into the yard and rolled before gaining his feet and going over the fence this time! I now have a 4 foot fence that is only 2 feet tall and am short one bottle of fish emulsion! The reason I tell you these stories is because I wanted to show that most wild animals, given the chance, will flee before fighting. They know we humans are bad news and would just as soon avoid us if they can. I agree with Felix, some day your encounter with the bobcat will be a fond memory. Most people who live in Florida have never seen a bobcat and probably never will. That makes your encounter special, tho no less frightening! nova

Rickey, Of course it was Fred. Who else his age is out driving around visiting gardeners in the middle of the afternoon? LOL If you see Billy Fred, do see if you can find out what he knows because he may know more details. Nowadays, when I ask Fred "who" he is talking about, he often can't remember names and will say something like 'you know...that guy that lives over yonder' and, of course, I have no clue who he means. Having said that, I hope that when I am Fred's age (and I'm not sure what it is but think right around 90?) I still get around as well as he does. Sometimes I do have to get Billy Fred to tell me who his dad is talking about because, while Fred always seems to have his facts straight, he does have trouble remembering names now and then. I had wondered about those goats....about how he keeps them safe because I've never seen any kind of guardian dog like a Great Pyrenees out there with them. I heard a loud growling this morning from the woods oddly enough (and I was inside the house and it sounded like it was right there in the room with me!) and it about scared me to death. As far away as your house is from ours, it is odd we've both heard that growling sound recently. It isn't like we're so close geographically that we'd hear the same growl at the same time. I've never heard this sound before and I pretty much thought I'd heard everything there is to hear around here. The dogs were going nuts in their dog yard, and I ran downstairs and didn't see a thing, but the cats were on the porch wanting to come inside. After that growling sound, I canceled my plans to work in the yard. James, I feel like much of what you say is true, but we have both good and bad government employees and always will. I know sometimes the local wildlife people seem to say whatever the 'official' story line is but their eyes and body language are telling you something else. Our local law enforcement officers are pretty good about telling us to 'do what you have to do' to stay safe, because they know they can't be everywhere at once. They also come as quickly as they can when called, but with only 1 or 2 or 3 county deputies/reserve deputies on duty at a time, their response time can be frustratingly slow. Game bird, I promise, if you tell me you see three dinosaurs crossing the road, I'll believe you. And. on a funnier note....Chris was 15 when we moved here and had a huge iguana named Alex. He built Alex a nice roomy outdoor pen, but somehow Alex would escape and run around although he always came back to the cage when he was hungry. We alerted our neighbors, and I showed Alex to Bill one day. We were watching Alex from the road and he climbed to the top of the pecan tree, which was then losing its leaves for autumn, so you could see Alex very clearly. At that point he was about 5' long. When Bill saw him, he said he needed to warn his wife and daughters because he feared they'd about run off the road and wreck their vehicles if Alex ever ran out into the road in front of them. Bill was afraid the women in his family would think Alex was an alligator. Carol, I do think a lot of people know exactly how to play the system. Tim and Chris both work at D-FW Airport, which is incorporated just like a city, and has a large Department of Public Safety consisting of police, fire and emergency medical personnel employees. Their department has several hundred employees and most are wonderful, but there are a couple that of virtually worthless. How people like that keep their jobs is just beyond me. Dawn

Vilcat, I am torn between patting you heartily on the back and telling you this is a good thing/bad thing to be doing. I'd be inclined to do the very same thing you are doing, helping this beautiful cat through the winter, and then I'd be overcome with paranoia thinking it would lose its fear of humans and amble up to my neighbor's back porch for a handout...and my neighbor is a coon/coyote hunter who would love to make a lampshade out of it. The thing is, if I did not get a birthday or christmas gift for ten years I wouldn't care because I got the best gift I could ever hope for this fall. During deer season the hunters toss their carcasses over a small bridge about 1/8th of a mile from my front door. It's a nasty habit, but I figure as long as they don't wrap it in plastic that won't degrade, scavengers make quick work of the stuff and in the process provide me with good wildlife viewing if I approach quietly. I dropped by one afternon to see how successful the locals had been and casually leaned over the railing...and got the shock of my life. There on top of the closest carcass, maybe 9 feet away, was a female bobcat and her two yearling kittens. The shock for everyone involved was nearly palpable. After freezing for a moment the kittens broke and ran, leaping the bank of the creek and scuttling off through the brush. The mother flattened her body and gave a bit of a hiss, and then just crouched low and watched me, unsure. I was cursing myself for leaving the digital camera on the kitchen table. I would later realize that this certainly didn't match the folklore-the terrible screaming wad of claws and fangs, dropping out of trees on folks. There were less than ten feet separating us but I never did feel threatened, even though she had her kittens there. On the contrary, I felt a little like an intruder, uninvited. I wished I could slowly just leave the scene as I found it, remove my presence and her unease, but she was aware of any twitch. What she did then surprised me...I assumed she might take a flying leap at escape like her youngsters did, but instead she very deliberately began slinking away from me with her eyes still on me, growling very low and softly, almost a wheeze. THen she got to the creekbank, paused, and with two simple moves she was up and over and gone. I found myself wondering if I had even been breathing this whole time, and I don't remember if I walked back to the house or ran, or if my words made any sense at all when I first found my husband in the garage. I returned to the bridge twice a day for the next few days and was rewarded with several additional encounters. I took my husband once, and realized that I married a man who couldn't walk quietly to save his own life. Despite this, we still managed to see them, and I now have slightly less respect for the hearing abilities of cats. I even set up my trail camera, hoping for some good stills, but the weather changed and flooding was a threat so the camera came down without results. Since then I have found tracks within a few hundred feet of the house and I realize these creatures are not easily put off by human activity. That's good and bad...they are welcome on any of my 400 acres but I can't protect them elsewhere. I am not even sure they ARE protected by law in my area, since their official status is up in the air. Around here the practice is shoot, shovel, and shut up. For the last ten years I have been closely following the slow return of two of our wild cats, bobcats and mountain lions, to our area of southern Illinois. I saw tracks first but was uncertain. I had two nighttime glimpses of what I was sure must be bobcats, but 99% sure is still not 100%. When I came face to face with my first individual about 8 miles from here this summer, a much larger cat than the female by our house, I knew it was finally a reality. Now I know there are reproducing adults here and the story continues. I have doubts that a top predator like the cougar could make a comeback and peacefully coexist with nervous, armed humans, but the smaller bobcat might just be able to pull it off if it can adapt to this fragmented, agricultural landscape. Question is, will humans let them? Here is a link that will be of interest to anyone following the issues of wild cat population increases and declines, and it is unopinionated and based on scientific study, not emotion. If you like, you may also sign up for automatic updates as information and situations arise. http://www.cougarnet.org/breakingnews.html This site is dedicated to the ongoing study of wild cat populations in North America and is not limited to bobcats. There is an automatic mailing service if you'd like to receive notification of breaking news, too.