Bobcat Sighting–So What? It Might be the Last One You Ever See

Earlier tonight I was watching the news and the very distressed looking anchorwoman reported that a bobcat is “on the loose” in an Orlando neighborhood. I pointed out to her (from my news desk on the couch) that bobcats, as well as other forms of wildlife, are actually supposed to be “on the loose.” I don’t think she heard me though. She didn’t appear to be comforted.

Here in Florida, construction (aka destruction) has reached maniacal proportions. The other day I heard that developers actually have government permission to smother thousands of gopher tortoises with fill dirt because it’s just too darned inconvenient to relocate them.

Bears climb trees out of fear and desperation and have to be shot with tranquilizer guns in order to be safely removed from neighborhoods. This happens because their habitats disappear and they don’t know where to go. A lot of us get up in arms when these “untamed beasts” cross our paths as though they’re something new and unwelcome in our world. Maybe we forget that the world wasn’t born of technology and concrete. It was the other way around.

Even if you’re not a nature lover or animal activist, you probably want business to continue as normal. By that I mean you probably don’t want the polar ice caps seeping into your bedroom. You might not want your neighborhood engulfed in flames. And I’m betting that when you’re thirsty you’ve become accustomed to being able to find a drink of water. I’m not announcing anything new here but, just for reinforcement, if we turn the globe into a round parking lot, things will not continue as normal.

I always hear the adage about the butterfly flapping it’s wings in Africa and starting a hurricane. I love that because it reminds me how we need every single piece of nature. Together, no matter how insignificant it seems to us, they keep the jigsaw puzzle together. You don’t have to be a “Bible thumper” or a meditation master to understand that there is an order to life on this planet. You don’t have to be Stephen Hawking to understand that every single form of life on this earth is in place for a purpose and eventually that purpose impacts us. If a species disappears, another one follows as a result. Over time this goes down the line until, one day, we’re it. And then we’re not. It’s simple science, logic and reality.

It frustrates me when desperate voices of people, who want to survive, are drowned by the sound of heavy equipment and stifled by greed. I happen to love nature and, if life could be lived without it, it wouldn’t be a life for me. I’m blessed to have six acres that, God willing, no one can touch. I treasure the woods that house deer and bears, tons of birds, ducks, frogs, raccoons, oppossums, armadillos, gopher tortoises, lizards, squirrels and, even, snakes. I don’t care if the armadillos tear up my grass or the bears turn over the garbage. I wouldn’t harm a single one of them. They’re just trying to make a living like the rest of us. And they give me a lot of pleasure along the way.

A bobcat “on the loose” doesn’t scare me a bit. Every adult should know that if you leave wildlife alone, it will leave you alone. It’s the beasts with the bulldozers and the big bank accounts we need to be worried about.