Bobcats suspected in Flagler pet deaths

FLAGLER BEACH — One night in June when Dan McKinley let his yellow tabby, Mojo, out of the house, the cat did something it had never done before. It hid in the garage.

“He knew something was out there,” McKinley would say later, knowing then what he couldn’t have suspected at the time: that Mojo’s hours were numbered.

“The next morning, I went out to get the newspaper and called him,” said McKinley. “He came crawling back, covered in blood with tear marks.”

McKinley rushed Mojo to the veterinarian. In addition to the rows of razor-like slices in the cat’s back, its throat had been crushed. There was nothing the vet could do. McKinley and his wife Kathleen buried Mojo in the front yard.

Later, McKinley noticed some unusual scat in their driveway and that some of his cat’s food had been eaten.

McKinley showed a photo he’d taken of Mojo’s injuries to his neighbors, telling them, “We’ve got a bobcat problem.”

The next day, as if to confirm McKinley’s warning, a neighbor across the street found his own cat on the porch, slain.

Predator invasion

At last count, 24 domestic cats on the south side of Flagler Beach have gone missing or been injured or killed within the past seven weeks.

In the wake of these attacks, bobcat sightings abound.

“I was just sitting on my back porch when a bird swooped down and was squawking and screeching, and there was a cat,” recalled Fredda Levenson. “I thought it was one of my cats, and then I noticed my cat was right next to me.”

A closer look revealed the animal’s size and shape and Levenson realized what she was looking at.

“It just walked in my backyard over to the water and into the woods,” she said.

Many of her neighbors have had similar encounters. Still, there is uncertainty among residents over whether the killings are the work of one or more bobcats or if at least some of the deaths and disappearances have been caused by coyotes or some other predator. Coyote and bobcat territories overlap, wildlife officials say.

Prompted by the rash of attacks, Flagler Beach resident Linda Costello organized a public meeting in July to spread awareness of the issue.

“Maybe we can save a few pets, save a few broken hearts,” she said.

She and other concerned citizens had a follow-up meeting last week at the Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall, this time featuring a presentation by representatives from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Susan Carroll-Douglas, an FWC biologist for the northeast region, covered ways to identify a bobcat, regulations governing their capture and strategies that residents can use to discourage them.

“I can’t stress enough: Don’t feed bobcats or other wildlife,” she said.

Not only are some of the foods people feed them unhealthy for some animals, encouraging wildlife may attract more predators. Even bird feeders can bring them into a neighborhood.

Carroll-Douglas recommended that cats and small dogs be kept indoors or on leashes when out for a walk. She said keeping domestic cats inside a screened enclosure will not provide enough safety. She suggested bringing cats’ dishes inside after the pet is done eating.

“The bottom line is it’s not safe outside here in Florida for cats, I hate to say,” she told the audience of about three dozen. “If it’s not a bobcat, it’s a coyote, it’s an alligator, it’s a hawk, an owl. We just have a lot of animals here in Florida that, given the opportunity, will prey on small cats.”

Indeed, conservation commission specialists have been busy educating area residents about a host of nuisance wildlife turning up in local neighborhoods.

Coyotes have been prowling coastal Volusia County since about November snatching pets and feral cats in Port Orange, Ormond Beach and New Smyrna Beach.

According to FWC spokesman Greg Workman, it’s a statetwide concern and community meetings on the issue have been conducted in most Central Florida counties.

[READ MORE: Coyotes seen prowling along coastal Volusia]

Throughout Volusia and Flagler counties, there have been reports of damage to several properties from wild hogs. In 2017, packs of feral pigs struck the Woodlands area of Palm Coast. In June, Edgewater officials hired a trapper to capture and remove hogs after a pack of them were seen in that city. Most recently, hogs have been tearing up lawns in the Hidden Lakes community in Flagler County.

[READ MORE: Wild hogs plague Flagler]

Discouraging bobcats

Conflicts between wildlife and people in the area are nothing new, but the rash of recent reports has prompted some to speculate as to a specific cause.

During last week’s meeting, some suggested that a controlled burn in northern Volusia County may have rousted the bobcats from their preferred habitat. One woman said her cat vanished two weeks after that burn.

Others have pointed to nearby home construction as a possible cause because it might have infringed upon the bobcats’ territory. Earlier this year, residents of the Woodlands complained that hogs were being forced into their neighborhood by construction along nearly Colbert Lane.

Whatever the cause, Susan Carroll-Douglas suggested residents make loud sounds to startle the bobcats upon seeing them. People can blow an air horn or whistle, rattle a soda can filled with stones, bang pots or use motion-activated sensors attached to sprinklers to squirt cold water into the animals’ faces.

“We want to let them know this is your space, and they’re not welcome on it,” she said.

However, she cautioned residents not to use the same items all the time. The bobcats may grow used to the sound and begin to ignore it.

Beyond that, there is little that worried pet owners can do. The use of traps and snares is strictly regulated, as is any attempt to capture and release the animal. Those that are captured may not be put down. And use of poison is absolutely forbidden.

Flagler Beach residents have hired a certified trapper, however, to help mitigate the problem.

“The bobcat situation has changed the flavor of the neighborhood,” said Flagler Beach resident Jeanine Gervais, who has two cats.

A former resident of Massachusetts, Gervais was surprised when moving to the seaside city by how many people have outdoor cats that roamed freely.

“The cats were like: 'Here we are; we own the neighborhood,'” she said.

But that’s not so much the case anymore. Not since the arrival of the bigger, more predatory bobcats.