Visited some friends in a growing bedroom community north of Dallas over the weekend.
I was invited with my friends to attend a neighborhood get-together.

At the gathering the chatter centered around missing cats and a small dog in the past few weeks.

No hide, nor hair, nor sightings at all, after last seen being let out at night by their respective owners.

The 7th happened to be a full moon, I awoke earlier than usual around 4:00, whether it was the different bed or locale or something else, anyway, I went for a walk.

Beautiful night, full moon, 70 degrees, the neighborhood has a great path near a creek and a pond. The area had been a cattle ranch and had some cultivated fields in the past as well.

As I returned to my friends home entering the alley parallel to his and near the creek the silver-gray form of a large bobcat leapt to the top of the 8 foot fence.

In its mouth appeared initially to be a kit;
on closer inspection the lifeless body of a tabby was evident.

Mystery solved, or so I thought. The cat glided along the fence toward the creek and departed.

I changed direction back to the creek walking path to stalk along and watch. The cat seemed to have little interest in my presence as it ambled along. Inexplicably ,it bolted vertically with what in the moonlight appeared to be a log falling near it.

Then the log moved, as I approached more closely I could see what appeared to be about a 9 ft reticulated python now making its way into the underbrush of the creek bed.

After sunrise my friend notified animal control , and though a bit skeptical at first, they have now placed box traps for the cat, but "aren't quite sure " what to do about the snake.

The chatter at the neighborhood pool became a clamor, as I left Sunday, with all the Mothers in a fury.

Waiting to hear from my friend as to the next chapter in the story. I'll let you know--

Probably coyotes there too?

Sounds like the local pets are really appreciated by the local wildlife.

Common occurance here in Arizona with coyote's, more so than bobcats, although bobcats do get their share of household pets also. When I moved into my neighborhood in the early 80's, we were the furthest development North of Phoenix and it was a frequent occurance to see coyote's roaming the neighborhoods for an easy meal. For many years, we even had hawks that would fly over our back yards before sunset and snatch toy breed dogs, small cats, and pet rabbits. Recently had a friend have a blue heron eat all the fish out of her backyard pond. Would have loved to have seen that! I read that Florida has a problem with many of the constrictor type snakes being set free by their owners, when they get to large to care for, and are found to be eating neighborhood pets.

Have a good friend/client who does animal control jobs and relocates many snakes (rattlers, sidewinders, etc.) from new developments in the desert. Amazes me how many homeowners in these remote areas do not take into consideration that they will be living with these creatures as this was their habitat.

I'll bet that 9' python has the neighborhood mothers concerned, would have had me concerned also, if I was in that position when my children were small.

Yes there are coyotes nearby, thing that amazes me is the pythons ability to survive our winter(although last one was mild).

Another interesting occurrence at DFW , another large snake with a belly full was killed on an electric fence.

Dallas has a large transformer station near Greenville @ Mockingbird that is home to a parrot colony, they stay there in the winter for warmth.

That's a good night's sighting, 2 shy mostly noctornal animals.
As suburbs expand these animals are going to keep becoming more frequent sightings (including snakes from Asia). I saw a coyote in the back yard of my shore house in Cape May, NJ last weekend and am going to try and call him in w/ a predator call (just for fun) this weekend. My parents have a house in the Florida Keys (Marathon), that area from the everglades down is starting to have a lot of released snakes creeping around.

This is why our feral cat, well, 1/2 feral cat, is an indoor only cat:


As soon as I tried stalking to 50 yards for a better picture, the fox took one giant jump backwards, into the very heavy brush, and was gone.

We also have mountain lions, deer, turkey, geese, dogs, coons, skunks, etc.

Cats should be indoor pets, unless you want to feed the other higher animals on the food chain.

We don't have many Chinese or Koreans around...
so that's the good news...at least for the cats...

The bobcat I can understand you not being able to catch, but a good friend would have caught the snake - I mean 9 foot python,

quote:

Originally posted by new_guy:
The bobcat I can understand you not being able to catch, but a good friend would have caught the snake - I mean 9 foot python,

That's assuming I like his kid

What bothers me is that somebody doesn't just kill the 9' python. If its a threat to human children it should be dead, end of question.

Update:
Animal control has caught neither bobcat or snake, they have caught raccoons, possums and a coyote.