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Bobcat caught in Coeur d'Alene

| October 2, 2018 1:00 AM

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The young bobcat tries to hide in the engine compartment of the animal control officer's truck.

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A young bobcat rests in a net after being captured by a Coeur d'Alene Police Department animal control officer in a northwest Coeur d'Alene neighborhood.

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A bobcat looks down from its perch in a tree in Post Falls on Saturday morning. (Photo courtesy of POST FALLS POLICE DEPARTMENT)

By MAUREEN DOLAN

Staff Writer

COEUR d’ALENE — Cougars and coyotes aren’t the only wild animals showing up in unusual places in Kootenai County these days.

Bobcats are now making an appearance. Sightings were reported last week in Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls.

Coeur d’Alene animal control officer Colton Grytness responded last Thursday to a report of an animal that had been hit by a car and was running around one of the city’s northwest neighborhoods.

When he arrived, he found a wild animal trying to hide in the wheel well of a vehicle.

It was a very young bobcat.

“It was very cool to see,” Grytness said.

The wild cat started to run away, but then it crawled into the engine compartment of Grytness’ truck, and he was able to open the hood and remove the little animal.

By then it was early evening and no one from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game was available to help, so Grytness called Cat Tales Zoological Park, a big cat sanctuary and wildlife rescue in Mead, Wash., north of Spokane.

Grytness said the Cat Tales folks told him they couldn’t do anything unless Fish and Game was involved, and they would have to relocate the bobcat anyway.

Chelsie Roberge, office manager at Prairie Animal Hospital, said Grytness had contacted them when he got the call about a cat that had been hit by a car.

Roberge said the animal hospital takes emergency cases like this and will stabilize an animal while the pet’s owner is located.

“Then Colton called and said, ‘I think I need to call Fish and Game. This is a wild cat,’” Roberge said.

Grytness brought the cat to the animal hospital, where veterinarians examined it and determined it was a bobcat.

“We kept it for two days and made sure it was stable,” Roberge said.

The animal hospital looked for rescue groups willing to take the bobcat, but with no luck. Wildlife experts told them the animal could be released elsewhere.

“One of our gals, who lives in a very safe spot north of here, took it and relocated it in an area far away from humans,” Roberge said.

Roberge commended Grytness for his care and compassion for the young bobcat.

Another bobcat was seen two days later in Post Falls.

“There is a bobcat visiting homes and climbing trees in the area of 12th and Ewell,” said a Saturday posting on the Post Falls Police Department’s Facebook page. “If you come across the cat please leave it alone. If the bobcat becomes aggressive, please call the police department.”

The post included a photo of the animal.

Police Sgt. Dave Marshall said the bobcat eventually wandered off.

“Unless there’s a danger to the public, that’s usually how we’re going to handle a call like that,” Marshall said. “It was obviously frightened. It was out of its element.”

Laura Wolf, a regional wildlife biologist with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, said it’s not particularly common to receive a report of a bobcat sighting.

But that doesn’t mean the animals aren’t around.

“They’re fairly elusive, and they’re not large,” Wolf said. “It doesn’t surprise me that you’d see one in an urban area.”

Wolf speculated that the recent increase in wild animal sightings in Kootenai County is likely related to two fatal cougar attacks that made headlines earlier this year. In Washington, a cyclist was killed in May, and just last month in Oregon, a Gresham woman was killed by a cougar near Mount Hood.

“People are on high alert,” Wolf said.

As more people move into an area, wild animal sightings will increase, Wolf said.

“We do have high population growth here, particularly in the Post Falls and Rathdrum Prairie areas,” Wolf said.

Those areas shifted once, years ago, from forest and prairie to agricultural, she said, and now they’re shifting again, changing the landscape and forcing the animals out of their nesting areas.

“Even the northern three counties all have high projected levels of population change, mainly in the valleys,” Wolf said.

Many of the areas are being developed at higher densities than they have been previously, she said.

“In a subdivision with 10-acre lots, you can easily have these animals living on the property and never see them,” Wolf said. “But when you have houses on a third of an acre, you’re going to see more of them.”

Wolf said she can’t think of any instances where Fish and Game has trapped and moved bobcats or coyotes.

“For the most part, people don’t really see them, and they eat small mammals, like rodents,” she said. “Bobcats are not usually a species we receive many complaints about.”