LAUREL CANYON—I was casually trotting across my residential street, and then I saw it. I was frozen. I wasn’t thinking it was going to attack me, which is my response to every coyote I see, but my mind was screaming, “No way! Did I really see that?” It was 2 feet high at the shoulders, and the hips were slightly taller. There were little tufts of black hair sticking out of its ears, brownish in color, with a stubby tail that was maybe a hand-span long. 

A bobcat was spotted in the Hollywood Hills by a local in November 2010.

I am a regular visitor of the Sooky Goldman Nature Center, so I have seen photos of a lynx.  After doing some research, I am absolutely convinced that what I spotted was a Eurasian Lynx rather than the run-of-the-mill California Lynx or bobcat.

There’s always a story within a story in my neighborhood. I had heard that many years ago one of my neighbors had a pet lynx. I kid you not.  Of course I had dismissed this as gossip in the past. That was then, this is now. So I knocked on a neighbor’s door to confirm/deny the story.  Here’s what this couple swore. They’ve lived in the neighborhood for about 35 years. When their kids were young one of the neighbors found a baby lynx.  Another neighbor, Della, picked it up and called Animal Control and the police. The animal had no teeth and no claws. Who knows if it was too young, or maybe it had been de-clawed. My neighbors assured me that the animal had been returned to its rightful owners. From another neighbor, I learned that yes there had been a pet lynx in the area. No one was sure exactly which house it lived in, but this neighbor was sure that when the family left the neighborhood, they left the lynx behind. Whether they left the lynx behind on purpose or by mistake, no one can tell me.  The life expectancy of a lynx in captivity is 25 years.  Could it be? 

Now my neighbors are telling me various stories about our resident bobcats. The same neighbor swore that just the other day she looked out into her backyard and saw a bobcat in the pouring rain; it was still as a statue until it bolted over a 6-foot fence and vanished.  She thinks what I saw was this bobcat. Two other neighbors have confirmed multiple bobcat sightings recently. One said she saw a mother and cub up on her wall.  I checked with the rangers and they have a tagging program for bobcats, but were a little reluctant to admit there might be a Eurasian Lynx in residence. Everyone is asking me if it had spots. I think not, but it was trotting away from me. I saw the hairy eyes, plain as day!  Could this have been the cat’s winter coat?  Could it have been a Darwinian adaptation to its environment?  Could it be the next generation mix between this wild animal reared in captivity which was set free and mated with a bobcat?

If I thought there was any chance of seeing this cat again I’d camp out in a beach chair with my camera ready.

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