I Saw A Bobcat Today

I saw a bobcat today. Not while jogging, when I tend to have such encounters, but while driving a stretch of road I take to buy groceries, a distance of about thirteen miles. The terrain here is long sweeps of grassland with occasional groves of live oak. I saw the bobcat from the window of my jeep as I drove along. At first I thought it was a house cat, for the distance deceived. I slowed and looked close and could then see the distinctive markings and ear shape of the lynx rufus. It was intent upon its quarry, crouched, tense, foreleg muscles bulging, ready to pounce. It never saw me, such was its focus.

Most of my enjoyment of California's Central Coast where I now live is from sharing the region with plentiful wildlife. I have encountered most of it on my runs; a gray fox, all kinds of deer from bucks to fawns, coyotes (including one I came face to face with at a distance of fifteen feet, startling us both), eagles and hawks, vultures, a ring-tailed cat, and near misses with bears and mountain lions.

The creatures in this area of California do not seem accustomed to runners. They are unprepared when I suddenly come upon them, padding up on light feet. I've nearly stepped on snakes and tarantulas. The cattle that line the fences gape at me in astonishment as I pass, their mouths hanging open exposing mouthfuls of grass.

I am told that the population of mountain lions in California is actually increasing. The cats have been driven west from other habitats where their existence has been challenged. In California, it is against the law to kill one (it is not against the law for one of them to kill us). And I wouldn't have it any other way. I was greatly saddened when a cat with which I shared a particular trail, each of us knowing of the presence of the other but going about our own business, became roadkill on the El Camino Real. But I know that another will likely move into the region.

I fear intoxicated drivers and illegal marijuana growers and deer hunters much more than the animals. It is with the former that my closest calls have come while jogging.

This all suggests to me that there is a balance in nature, a balance experienced by the other animals but not by humans. We've lost interest in maintaining the balance. We believe that we do not need nature, we believe that the existence of flora and fauna depends upon us, and not we it. We are saddened when a species dies out, or the ice pack which has stood for hundreds of thousands of years melts away. But then we pick up our coffee and flip to the next page of our newspaper.

It will be interesting to see if we can manage to live without nature. We are well on the road toward finding out.