Dog park users report a large cat lurking
Thursday, July 12th, 2007JACKSONVILLE BEACH – Several people recently reported seeing a large cat near the city dog park, but they don’t know if it’s a bobcat, an elusive Florida panther or some other feline. And until they find out, there’s not much state wildlife agencies can do.
Within the last two weeks, three people at Paws dog park at Wingate Park reported seeing a 70-pound cat with a dark coat, spots on its stomach and a flat, wide skull pacing back and forth along the chain-link fence at the park’s small-dog area. Since then, other reports have come into the Beaches Dog Park Project volunteer group about a 40- to 50-pound cat pacing in the woods near the area.
Sgt. Tom Bingham, spokesman for Jacksonville Beach police, said no reports of sightings have come in to his office, but that cases of seeing animal tracks in the sand at the park have been reported.
Park volunteer Norma Brizzi, who frequents the dog park several times a week, said reports of sightings have come to her and that on March 3 when she was at the park with her Maltese dog, she saw a large animal pacing in the woods behind palmetto scrub. She said that she couldn’t make out what type of animal it was but heard it breaking through foliage as it paced and that it seemed to be fairly large.
“You could tell it was big,” Brizzi said.
She said her dog and other breeds with a strong drive to hunt prey have been acting strangely around the park as well. She said that if the animal is a panther, it’s endangered and the Florida Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission would need to trap it and move it according to specific procedures.
Wendy Quigley, a coordinator for the commisssion’s Research Institute, said there’s not much her agency can do unless there’s some proof that the animal is a panther. She said that the agency gets reports all the time of possible panther sightings that turn out to be false. She said they don’t have the resources to check out every claim so they rely on photographs of the animal or the animal’s paw print that witnesses send in to determine if they need to investigate further.
Another resident who frequents the dog park, Janet Folsom, said she and her husband have put out fresh dirt around the dog park to hopefully capture an identifiable paw print.
But, just as important, Brizzi said, if it’s a bobcat, it could be a danger to dogs. In turn, she said, having people and traffic near the cat could endanger it.
“It’s a danger to us, we’re a danger to it,” Brizzi said.
But Karen Parker, the commission’s public information coordinator, said bobcats are inherently shy and stay away from people. She said that if the animal is a bobcat, it’s probably found a local food source and will move along as soon as that source has dried up. She said the commission doesn’t have the personnel to track every bobcat sighting and that if it really became a constant nuisance, the residents could call a nuisance trapper, who are listed on the commission’s Web site at myfwc.com.
The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Services extension office says bobcats have a spotted coat and generally have a short tail, “but some individuals can have a tail as much as a foot or longer in length. Although young panthers are spotted like a bobcat, these spots disappear after their first year of age.”
SOURCE: Jacksonville Times
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