Elusive Bobcat

Spotted Again

By Jeff White

Newtown’s bobcat appears to be back.

Every morning, Carlin Zeno looks out of his kitchen window into his back yard to see what wildlife is active. Sometimes, the flock of wild turkeys that makes its home in his back woods are out for a dawn snack. Other mornings, a family of deer ambles across his lawn on its way to open pastures.

Last Friday morning, Mr Zeno saw a new visitor: a bobcat.

“It was shocking,” he explained about the encounter. The bobcat immerged from Mr Zeno’s back woods and walked across his back yard. “I took one look and couldn’t believe it.”

He ran to get his son, but when the two returned, the cat had moved on to other places.

This was not the first time a bobcat has been spotted in Newtown. Several residents over the last year claim to have spied the fleeting feline everywhere from behind Sand Hill Plaza in Botsford to Currituck Road.

Apparently the bobcat is quite the traveler, as it made its way last week up to Mr Zeno’s Boggs Hill Road home.

“He was kind of grayish on the top, kind of light colored, light gray, on the bottom, and he had a stubby tail,” Mr Zeno described. He added that it appeared the animal was about 18 inches tall, and resembling a smooth haired fox terrier he once owned.

The bobcat’s presence was enough to give the family of deer pause, Mr Zeno said, as the doe stood and stared off into distance toward where the cat walked off.

Although a bobcat (or bobcats) has been spotted around town before, no one has been able to successfully capture it on film.

Now an area that Mr Zeno has called home for the last 42 years appears to be the latest spot for would-be wildlife photographers to try and capture a shot of Newtown’s wild cat.

“I live at the cross roads of animal kingdom up here,” Mr Zeno laughed.