Bobcats in Calgary

My friend Doug sent me the following photos of a bobcat walking on the fence in his backyard yesterday. Click on the photo for a larger version. This is the second time Doug and Karine have seen a bobcat in their yard, but the first time he was able to get such nice photos, from inside the house I might add. Reports of bobcats in Calgary have made the local news more and more over the last few years. I have included a links to a CBC article on Calgary bobcats and and some information from Alberta Environment.  (These photos are reproduced here with permission, further reproduction is prohibited and the rights to the photos remains with Doug.) 

Thanks for sharing these lovely photos Doug.

As followers of my blog know I like to include some poetry with my posts. I have quoted these lines before but they immediately sprung to mind when I though of these photos.

"Cocked in that land tactile as leaves

wild things wait crouched in those valleys

west of your city outside your lives

in the ultimate wind, the whole land's wave. 

Come west and see; touch these leaves." 

from Midwest

by William Stafford

For more on Willian Stafford, probably my favourite poet and the quote below see;

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-e-stafford

" Frederick Garber says of Stafford's first book of poems, West of Your City, "West is both Midwest and far West but it is always west of where we are. It is the place of nature and especially of nature's secrecy, that Otherness which we can touch at times." 

What to do if a bobcat family sets up in your backyard
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/bobcats-calgary-what-to-do-backyard-1.4271192

https://globalnews.ca/news/5089281/https://globalnews.ca/news/5089281/southeast-calgary-bobcat-maulings-warning/

Government of Alberta
https://www.alberta.ca/bobcats.aspx