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Bobcat goes fishing, casually catches massive salmon
Bobcat goes fishing, casually catches massive salmon
BY KEEGAN CLEMENTS-HOUSSER DECEMBER 15 2016
This bobcat makes hunting for salmon look easy, and frankly puts human fishing to shame. Just reach in, grab a snack almost as big as yourself for breakfast, and even manage to stay mostly dry in the process.
The wildcat's expert display of fishing prowess was caught on camera in Washington's Olympic National Park by ranger Lee Taylor, who was out and about looking for salmon in the streams of Hoh, a temperate rainforest located within the park.
"I went looking for spawning salmon and found a fishing bobcat," Taylor wrote on the park's Facebook page. "You never know what you might come across even on a quiet snowy morning."
Though getting to watch a bobcat fish or hunt might be unusual – they're primarily solitary and nocturnal creatures, meaning they generally hunt at night and away from prying eyes – fishing for a meal is hardly unusual for a bobcat (Lynx rufus).
These far-ranging, opportunistic hunters are found throughout North America, as well as Canada and as far south as central Mexico – and their unfussy diets can sometimes land them odd meals. The felines tend towards smaller prey like fish, rabbits, rodents and birds, as well as other small animals local to their habitat. However, they'll occasionally try their luck with larger prey like deer or pigs.
These far-ranging, opportunistic hunters are found throughout North America, as well as Canada and as far south as central Mexico – and their unfussy diets can sometimes land them odd meals. The felines tend towards smaller prey like fish, rabbits, rodents and birds, as well as other small animals local to their habitat. However, they'll occasionally try their luck with larger prey like deer or pigs.
In 2015, a bobcat was photographed dragging a shark out of the surf on a beach in Florida. The incident was unusual enough that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission examined the photo to verify it – and according to spokesperson Liz Barraco, it checked out.
"We have no reason to believe [the photograph is] fake," Barraco told National Geographic, noting that bobcats were strong occasional fishers. "But this is the first time we've seen them fishing in saltwater."
The animal apparently realised the shark was more than it had bargained for and abandoned its catch on the beach, but the capture itself was still a success. With the shark incident as context, it's perhaps less surprising that Washington's wild cat managed to nab a salmon so easily. One thing's for certain: with skills like that, the bobcat won't be going hungry anytime soon.
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House Cat Origin Traced to Middle Eastern Wildcat Ancestor
Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
June 28, 2007
Cat fanciers have long known that their
feline friends have wild origins.
Now scientists have identified the
house cat's maternal ancestors and traced them back to the Fertile Crescent.
The Near Eastern wildcat still roams the
deserts of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Middle Eastern countries. (See map.) Between 70,000 and 100,000 years ago the animal gave rise to the genetic lineage that eventually produced all domesticated cats.  "It's plausible that the ancient [domestic cat] lineages were present in the wildcat populations back as far as 70,000 or 100,000 years ago," said study co-author Stephen O'Brien of the Nationa Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland.
The wildcats may have been captured
around 10,000 or 12,000 years ago when humans were settling down to farming, he added.
"One of nearly 40 wild cat species existing
at that time, the little wildcat that lived in the Middle East had a genetic variance that allowed it to sort of try an experiment— let's walk in and see if we can get along with those people," O'Brien said.
One Hell of an Experiment
A research team led by geneticist Carlos
Driscoll of the National Cancer Institute and scientists at the University of Oxford in England found five matriarchal lineages to which modern domestic cats belong.
"This tells us that domestic cats were sort
of widely recruited, probably over time and space," Driscoll said.
But people probably weren't going out
and catching—or herding—cats.
"The cats just sort of domesticated
themselves. People today know that you can't keep a cat inside [without barriers], and 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent you couldn't just shut the window."
Farmers were likely the first to
domesticate wildcats. The animals may have been helpful in hunting mice and other pests that plagued farm fields in the early human settlements, which had just sprang from the first agricultural development.
Agriculture led to cities and towns,
as well as a new ecological environment that cats were able to exploit.
There are some 600 million house cats
around the world, study co-author O'Brien added. Cats on the Move"Domestication was one hell of a successful natural experiment."
Once the formerly wild felines became
household companions, the same cats appear to have accompanied human tribes as they gradually migrated and spread throughout the ancient world. (Check out our ancestors' journey through the Fertile Crescent.)
"It's sort of analogous to the 'out of
Africa' theory that people talk about for humans," Driscoll said. "In the same way, domestic cats from Europe are really the same as domestic cats from Israel or China or wherever."
The earliest archaeological evidence
for domestic cats has been found in Cyprus and dates back approximately 9,500 years.
Cat studies of all types are hindered
by the many physical and behavioral similarities between domestic cats and their wild relatives. In fact, it is often difficult or impossible for even the trained eye to tell them apart, and interbreeding has created many hybrids of the two.
Genetic Clues
Driscoll's study began because
genetics may be one of the only ways to determine which cats are truly wild. His group managed to successfully herd about a thousand wild and domestic cats and sample their DNA to produce the genetic study, which will appear in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science.
In search of cats' wild ancestor, the
team studied modern wildcat subspecies including the Near Eastern wildcat, the European wildcat, the Central Asian wildcat, the southern African wildcat, and the Chinese desert cat.
The sampling of feline genes revealed
that the Near Eastern wildcat and domestic cats fell into the same genetic clade, a group of species with the same ancestor. This meant the ancient ancestors of the wildcats were likely the first cats to be domesticated.
The genetic diversity of living cats
revealed that they must have existed for some 70,000 to 100,000 years to produce that degree of diversity |
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