Greetings friends and welcome to this week’s blog post. It’s July and it feels like it! The heat has been on around the Wisconsin Dells and so has our season. This week we’re taking a look at a new little resident of Timbavati Wildlife Park, a baby bobcat. This little kitten can be seen in the Waterfalls Area of our park. While we’re here, let’s take a look at a few bobcat facts.
Bobcats get their name from the shortness of their tail. Apparently someone thought the tail crop looked like a fashion statement and the name stuck. They are also referred to as bobtail cats and sometimes wildcats. A real wildcat though is a different thing.
Bobcats hunt in low light conditions. They will typically hunt at dawn and dusk. That seems to be a thing with a lot of large cats, life is a lot of sleeping and hunting. In the winter months they will hunt more during the day hours simply because their prey is far and fewer during those months. They are carnivores and will typically prey on small mammals and birds.
A full grown bobcat can weigh up to 33 pounds. They are a foot and a half to two feet in length and can also run at speeds of up to 30 miles an hour. They live all over North America from Southern Canada to Mexico.
If a bobcat kills something that big it can’t eat it all and it’s too large to carry off. When this happens they will bury their kill and come back to it later. Mountain lions do this as well. This is referred to as caching.
Bobcats mate primarily in the winter. The gestation period of the female bobcat is 60 to 70 days. Fortunately for us, we happen to have a new little baby bobcat in the waterfalls area. Check out this week’s video for a first look at one of the little new residents in Timbavati Wildlife Park. Thanks and we will talk with you all next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment