Bobcat & Mountain Lion Encounters

Five days ago, hiking at Tandy Hills Park I had a close encounter with a very large cat. We stared at each other til I started to move forward which spooked the cat into running away. I'd previously seen a large tannish colored cat in the distance. Til then, I really didn't believe the rumors that such an animal existed in the park. I don't know what type cat this was. I'd read that panthers have been spotted. Here in Texas they usually call mountain lions, panthers. In the northwest they were usually called cougars.

Long ago a Dallas reporter visited Fort Worth and wrote that the town was so lifeless that a panther was spotted sleeping at the courthouse steps. Or was it city hall? This long ago story is why Fort Worth is called Panther City and why it's baseball team is the Cats. So, apparently there is a long history of panther encounters in Fort Worth.

What perplexes me is, though this cat did look like a cougar, it was only about twice as big as a very big housecat. The cougars I've seen in zoos or stuffed in museums have been quite large. Way bigger than the cat at Tandy Hills. This cat at Tandy Hills was just a little bigger than a bobcat.

Which leads me to yesterday's encounter at River Legacy Park, my first with a bobcat in quite some time. My first encounter with a bobcat was on the River Legacy Park mountain bike trails. I'll admit it scared me. At that point in time I was sure it wanted to eat me. I was to learn later that there is no record of a bobcat attack on a human.

So, my subsequent bobcat encounters did not scare me. My strangest bobcat encounter occurred on the pedestrian bridge that crosses the Trinity River at River Legacy. As soon as I turned onto the bridge I saw a bobcat walking on to the bridge at the other end. He kept walking towards me and I kept pedalling towards him. We passed in the middle, both looking at each other, he not saying a word, me saying "Hello kitty."

I did not have my camera with me during my Tandy Hills panther encounter. I did with yesterday's bobcat, which is the source of the photo above.

Below is video taken by Dave of Dallas of a bobcat encounter at River Legacy Park.