Kathy Toppins
EDMOND — At 10:30 a.m. Sunday, a bobcat walked up to Stephanie Sallaska’s sliding glass patio door.
The bobcat saw Sallaska and showed no sign of fear. Sallaska lives on wooded acreage northwest of the Bryant Avenue and Covell Road intersection.
When she first saw the bobcat coming from the forest toward her house, Sallaska grabbed her binoculars. As the bobcat came closer, she traded the binoculars for a camera phone.
At one point, she said, the bobcat spent three or four minutes under a privet hedge, appearing to wait for a squirrel or bird attracted to the feeders. “I had to debate whether to witness the ‘Wild Kingdom” or scare it by opening the patio door,” Sallaska said.
She said the birds must have been aware of the bobcat’s presence. The bobcat gave up the hunt and walked across the grass to her patio door. The bobcat stood under a glider on her patio for about 30 seconds. The bobcat then walked on a retaining wall, bringing the animal about eye-level with Sallaska, who was standing in a sunroom built into the earth.
The bobcat moved so slowly, she said, she felt like she was watching in slow motion. The bobcat eventually was aware of her presence, Sallaska said.
“It occasionally looked at me,” but did not run away, she said.
She estimated the bobcat weighed 25-30 pounds and the top of its head was about 20 inches from the ground. “The most striking things were the hair over its ears and the fur curling out underneath its neck,” she said. The bobcat made no noise, “but that tail was going like crazy,” Sallaska said.
Her two dogs slept in the sunroom, unaware of their visitor. She said the dogs typically bark “when the air moves,” so she was surprised by their lack of response.
About a half an hour earlier, on the same cloudy morning, she saw a bobcat with a dead squirrel or rabbit in its mouth head into the forest behind her house.
Sallaska bought her Edmond home three months ago and said she has been seeing bobcats for the past 10 weeks, usually around mid-morning. “One morning, I saw two of them together; it looked like a parent and a child,” she said. Her first bobcat sighting was at dusk.
Sallaska works from 4 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. out of her home. With new windows, the Oklahoma master naturalist spends a lot of time watching the wildlife on her property. She also cut trails in the forest behind her house that she now suspects might be used as a bobcat crossing.
“I didn’t know I was sharing them,” she said.
Jim Fish, Edmond Animal Welfare supervisor, said, “We get calls probably every week to two weeks on bobcat sightings. What goes unreported is how many domestic cats are being carried away and killed by the bobcats.”
As civilization and bobcat habitats abut, he said, bobcats are becoming accustomed to the presence of people.
“They’re becoming more and more bold,” Fish said. He predicted Edmond residents will see more bobcats jumping over fences into yards, putting even small dogs at risk.
Bobcats, he said, can very easily hide in brush or low trees. The best way to keep small pets safe, he said, is to keep them inside or stay with them when they need to go outside. He recommended that pet owners “think like a guardian, because there’s a lot of danger out there.”
ktoppins@edmondsun.com | 341-2121, ext. 112
