Bobcats Before Breakfast

by John Kulish

  The upriver journey always ended at a remote backwoods pond which nurtured not only several varieties of fish, but also an unusual abundance of crayfish. I knew how welcome these would be to any otter. At the appropriate time my traps were set in the terminal pond. As expected, they remained empty until the seventh day when two held drowned otter. One was a female yearling, the other an exceptionally large dog, whose size and worn yellow teeth indicated he had “commodored” many a convoy. Three days passed before the third otter, a yearling male, was caught. Then nothing happened for more than a week.

  Could there have been only three? Could the mother have succumbed to a hazard other than myself? I thought not, but it troubled me. Something just wasn’t right. One dark, overcast, late November day, when the air was so angry it spit snow, I hiked up to the pond to see whether a solution to the mystery could be found. From a tangled clump of laurel I could view several hundred yards of water in three directions. Within a half-hour I observed what I had come to learn. First some ripples several hundred feet from shore, then a disturbance close to the surface, followed by a familiar flat head. It was the fourth otter. Not only her head but her entire body floated on top of the water, something I had never seen before. She was neither fishing nor playing. Motionless, she riveted her attention on the south shore as though expecting something. After a few minutes she turned to gaze in the opposite direction.

  Her peculiar behavior continued for twenty-five minutes before she slowly slipped under the surface, leaving only a few gentle ripples. I watched from my hiding place for another half-hour, expecting her to reappear. She did not. I wanted to wait longer, but the bitter cold forced me to leave.

  For the first time in my life I had seen a forlorn otter. It gave me an unfamiliar feeling that clawed at me—deep down. At the time I didn’t try to analyze either her strange behavior or my stranger emotion. It took many more years of wooded and domestic maturing before I understood what had happened. Now I know that this widow had searched in every distant cove of the pond, repeating her sad ritual as she grieved for her loved ones. They had suddenly gone out of her life because of me.

  Since that dark day I have confirmed the existence of this strong bond in otter families many times. I know what happens at every final parting, even though I am not there to see it. The bereaved one no longer plays. The lively dives, the explosive emergings, the lusty snorting and throat-clearing, the animated head-jerking, are all things of the past. The whole attitude has changed to one of lassitude. They dive slowly, emerge listlessly. During the long, sad weeks of searching, of waiting, and of hoping, widowed otter seem bewildered.

  In 1947 I was trapping one of the main arteries of the Contoocook River, where three otter were periodically visiting a certain two-mile stretch of the stream. After the usual waiting period, the skins of two of them, one an adult male, the other a male yearling, were stretched on my boards. During the next two weeks I made several “dry runs” in my canoe to the remaining traps. Where was the third otter? Why wasn’t she still on the river? Somewhere on that two-mile stretch of riverbank she had left a memo for me.

  Determined to read it, I swapped my paddle for my legs and headed upstream through the woods for the part of the river where towering ledges forced the water through a narrow, rock-filled gorge before releasing it to plunge into the large, deep pool that formed the upper end of a deadwater. I broke out of the dense spruces onto the ledges above the fast water and looked down into the pool. Something moved, but too far away to identify. I had to get closer. My approach was hidden by a heavy screen of tenacious evergreens. Parting the branches of a spruce, I searched the pool’s surface.

  An otter’s head appeared, but without either the usual splash or a fish. I was close enough to distinguish its long gray whiskers and silvery throat. Its shiny dark eyes looked steadily toward the arc of white water splashing down into the farther end. Then rolling slowly underwater it reappeared, facing downstream, to gaze unwaveringly toward the vacant river. I knew it was waiting for someone to suddenly swim upstream or to lunge over that wall of rushing water.

  There was only a ragged remnant of satisfaction in my ability as a trapper when I realized the otter was crying. Whenever it surfaced, it let out a series of four or five throbbing, plaintive, almost dovelike sounds. To me those noises were not those of an animal. I had never heard this sad lament before, nor have I heard it since. But how often does a woodsman find himself where he can see and hear the anguish of this gentle creature’s breaking heart?

  I got my last otter in 1957. During those last years of my intensive professional trapping I could no longer feel the triumph I had once felt. Upon removing a drowned otter with its broken teeth and limp, exhausted body from my trap, I could think only of the mate and its fruitless search for the lost one. Then I felt compelled to catch the survivor, more to end my own misery than theirs.

  Yes, I had indeed mastered my art. Now that art had boomeranged. What had started as a battle of wits developed into a partially self-supporting way of studying a fascinating creature in its own element. It ended in an almost passionate desire to protect the animal to whom God has given so many special qualities.

  Would-be trappers have offered me hundreds of dollars to teach them how to catch otter. I refuse them all, not because I don’t need the money, but because I have learned to love the otter. I would feel like a traitor. This much I am willing to pass along. It’s the same answer I gave a game warden when he asked me how I knew where to set an otter trap.

  “I set it where the otter’s going to put its foot.”

  The knowledge of how to do this will remain mine alone. It will go with me to my grave. My chosen profession has served me well. The animals were good teachers. The otter were the best of all. Only by being an otter myself would I be able to understand more.

  6. Yankee Bobcats: Valiant, Variable Vagabonds

  In late 1945, after this sailor swapped his uniform for a hunting shirt, he found that mange among foxes had wiped out a former source of winter income. Dame Fashion had also worked hand in hand with Mother Nature. Long-haired furs were no longer in style. So, because the state paid a bounty of twenty dollars for each bobcat turned into a local conservation officer, I had a clear and solid indication of my need to learn how to hunt them. The unthinkable alternative was to go into a factory. With the combination of trapping, guiding, and an adequate bounty from cats, I could stay in the woods and keep the household kitty solvent.

  The first thing I learned was that gunpowder, two legs, and a half-domesticated brain barely balanced a wildcat’s four legs, eagle eyes, and radar ears. The bobcat’s eyes do more than see, and its ears do more than hear; for its eyes and ears are a cat’s “brains.” They warn it of danger. They find it its food.

  Hunting cats is a grueling and lonely task. From dawn till dark, day after day, week after week, for more than three months, the one human voice I heard was my own. There was only my dog to talk to, or a cat to curse. By the end of March, when the snow began to melt, my clothes hung on my frame. The best we had as a man and a dog was pitted against the best they had as cats.

  They fascinate me. Of all our domesticated animals, the cat is the most independent, the most individual, and the most regally stubborn. Its wild cousin shares all these characteristics. Wary, unpredictable loners, I never so much as caught a glimpse of any bobcat, unless it was driven by one of my dogs. Even after a winter of near starvation, it is still a beautiful creature: head like a miniature tiger, eyes tawny and luminous, spirit unceasingly heroic, whiskers curving out in long, stiff arcs.

  The second lesson I learned was the big advantage a cat has in the kind of environment it chooses. When trailed by a hound, a red fox utilizes open country, stone walls, fields, roads, barways, and even a half-mile of railroad track to make good his escape. A bobcat does the exact opposite. His trail is a heart-stretching obstacle course. When forced to cross a road, cats pick a section bordered on either side by outcroppings of led
ges, or better yet, wherever a spruce swamp barely allows a road to dissect it. When going cross-country, they choose the swampiest swamps, the rockiest ridges, the thorniest thickets. Between mountain ranges, they go through every tangled blowdown. Do you want to undertake the pursuit?

  Another early discovery was that cats know more about New England weather than either I or the almanac does. During a series of clear, cold days, I have scouted ledges in search of cats. Sign showed that none had been around for days, sometimes not for weeks. On my way out of the woods, the clouds were so low I almost carried them on my shoulders. The wind shifted to the northeast. Before daybreak, the howling of a blizzard would awaken me. Smiling self-indulgently, I would turn over and go back to sleep. Two days later, after the storm had abated, I would return to the same ledges. Within hours after my departure, the rock pile that had been unvisited for days had been occupied. An hour earlier, a cat had emerged to venture abroad to test the snow. Finding it too soft and deep for hunting, it had retreated to the cave and like me, two mornings earlier, continued snoozing. The next morning, the exercise was repeated, and the same conclusion reached. On the third morning, hunger grabbed the reins, and drove the cat into the swamp at the foot of the mountain, even though the snow was still too deep. That’s where studying his habits made it possible for me to catch up with him.

  Bobcats do not hole up during snowfalls of two, four, or even eight inches. But when a major storm is brewing, something tells them, “You’ve got about three hours before the blizzard hits. The snow will be too soft and deep for you to hunt. You might as well sleep it out.”

  Over and over again in a dozen ledges on a dozen mountains, I have seen this ability to predict the amount of snowfall repeated. How do cats know? I can only assume they are equipped with something better than a barometer.

  Another thing I was not long in finding out was the great advantage of a pickup truck over a car. I had known it before, though not about cats. People wondered why a woodsman like myself drove a pickup truck. To them, it didn’t make sense. I wasn’t a farmer, a contractor, or a carpenter. Why a truck? The answer is logical. All our wild animals, except deer, have fleas. (The deer hair is so coarse, it would be like living in a broom.) An eye-to-eye visit with any squirrel, fox, or rabbit will reveal a startling number of parasites scurrying cross-country along the clearings around the eyes and nostrils of their hosts. Even mink and muskrat harbor an occasional wood tick, although I have yet to see a parasite on a beaver or an otter. The breed of fleas that inhabit bobcat country is especially large and voracious. Without actually having counted them, I believe every cat supports at least two thousand of these lively boarders, whose size is matched only by their bite. Cat tracks tell me they flop down regularly to scratch, scattering clumps of hair as mute testimony to an irresistible itch. Many times I have come out of the woods dragging two cats. I soon learned that tossing four thousand fleas into an enclosed car was a mistake. Throwing their hosts into the back of a cold, drafty pickup truck made the ride home more comfortable. At least, I could keep both hands on the wheel.

  Yankee cats come in two colors: cinnamon brown with lots of yellow, or storm-cloud gray with very little yellow. Both have underlying darker stripes. Neither sex, size, nor environment determine these variations in color. Nor does color affect their social lives. Theirs is a desegregated society, and mixed marriages are common.

  The average mature cat weighs about sixteen pounds. They vary in weight as much as we do, though not for the same reasons. I have shot some weighing as little as seven pounds and some as much as forty. Unlike us, a cat’s age can usually be judged by its weight and its teeth. The older it is, the more it weighs. Old teeth are always yellow and worn.

  Bobcats are selfish, independent, and mean. They are only sociable for a few weeks during the latter part of February and the bright days of early March. Deep inside some glacial rock pile, the young are born during the first two weeks of May. Most encyclopedias say there are from one to five kittens in a litter. I have never come across more than three. Even a trio is rare. But I know the hazards every young cat must face. Not the least of these is a mature tom who will kill any kitten, blood relative or not, astray from the safety of its mother’s claws.

  When the young are big enough to trail along, mother cat teaches them to hunt. This schooling is thorough, and classes last until late fall. The trouble is, like much of our education, it’s all theory and no practice. One autumn night, mother cat brings in a rabbit. Snarling, she tosses it in front of her kittens. They are playing and squabbling among themselves as they have done since early summer. Startled at her strange behavior, they look at one another.

  “What do you suppose got into Ma?” asks one.

  “Maybe she got up on the wrong side of the den,” answers another.

  “Aw, she’ll get over it,” ventures the third.

  They don’t realize she won’t get over it. Ma has had it. She just cut the gastronomic umbilical cord. The next night there is no rabbit, partridge, or squirrel on the table; nor on the second or the third nights. Every night, for as long as three weeks, the bewildered, starving kittens, hoping for a handout, follow their mother at a safe, respectful distance. Only a snarl and a clout are forthcoming. Ever increasing hunger finally warns them it’s find their own food or starve.

  The abandoned litter hunts together, often until the middle of January, which is the latest I have observed. It was usually a pair or a single kitten whose tracks caused my hound’s sensitized nose to twitch. This doesn’t point to no brothers or sisters, but rather to the fact that life is a hazard. After the bum’s rush suffered from Ma in late autumn, food is still plentiful. The swamps abound with inexperienced rabbits. Wild apple trees bend with fruit. Bustling chipmunks and squirrels grow careless. Only a few hunters roam the woods.

  Then comes the deer season. Overnight the countryside is aflame with nimrods, standing on rocks, thrashing through swamps and blowdowns. On rare occasions the deer hunter, motionless on a stand, with a shamrock in his pocket and with a battalion of other hunters in the area stirring up sleeping animals, spots a fleeing pair of cats and bags one. Only a cat as lucky as that hunter, can elude so crowded a gauntlet.

  Cats are nocturnal hunters. This includes house cats. Well-fed, pampered, hopefully spayed, but instinct is inoperable. When night falls, tails switch and eyes glitter, whether it be by the hearth or in the woods. Wildcats usually hunt from dusk to dawn. Then, oftentimes, they find a sheltered ledge that faces toward the southeast, and curl up for a good day’s sleep—until rudely interrupted by a hound dog on their scent. On dark and stormy days, like other denizens of the night, cats tend to move about more freely. In the early spring their habits change abruptly. Driven by a force more gnawing than hunger, they become quite reckless as, during the day, they roam about searching for a mate.

  Born vagabonds, mature wildcats range many miles in their daily travels. After some two thousand snowshoe miles following their tracks, I can usually tell what the animal is up to. I don’t always know why. A beaver lives in its lodge, a rabbit hops its lifetime away within a single swamp, unhunted deer rarely browse out of a three-mile circle, but cats have a hunting route that sprawls over as many as five townships. A given cat will hunt the same swamps, visit the same ledges, and sleep in the same motels every time he’s in town. Cold tracks or hot, they all lead up over ridges and through deer yards searching for a winter-weakened deer or a foolish young porcupine who is still slow on the draw. Cats never attack a full-grown, live “porky.” Because each respects the other’s defense system, they just “dip the colors” when passing. While hunting over a twenty- or thirty-mile circuit, cats oftentimes hole up in dens located in ledges or glacial rock piles that are already infested with porcupines. But an apartment teeming with tenants doesn’t faze a cat. Forcing his way in, he snarls, “Push over. You’ve got yourself a guest for the day whether you like it or not!” The patient porcupines move over, but not because they are afr
aid. They know the balance of power rests in their tails.

  When “jumped” by a dog, a cat can be as unpredictable as a panic-stricken human. If a cat heads for the nearest tree or rock pile, it is usually either very young or very full. Inexperienced kitties have more confidence in their climbing equipment than in their senses, and any cat that has been stuffing itself with deer steak has developed a weight problem. How can it run when its pot belly is dragging on the snow?

  Some cats are draft dodgers. They want no part of any conflict, especially one that is thrust upon them. In order to avoid bumping into the draft board, they quit hunting long before daylight to duck into a convenient hideaway. I once tried unsuccessfully to beat a tom like this to his retreat for five consecutive mornings until, on the last day, while still too dark to shoot, I stood defeated at his front door two miles up a mountain.

  His direct opposite seems to relish nothing better than a hot chase. These Hairbreadth Harries play in front of a hound better than a snowshoe hare, zigzagging merrily around and around within a quarter-mile circle, always in either a swamp or in a thick blowdown. When the chase reaches the boiling point, the confident quarry leaps up on top of fallen trees to run there until it catches its second wind, while temporarily outwitted hounds cast around for a fast-fading scent. Such reckless toms have dashed by me with only seven feet separating a bobbed tail from a dripping enemy tongue.

  The least profitable bobcat to hunt is a steeplechaser. This type loves to run cross-country and, when jumped at daybreak, sets its sights on the horizon. The champion led me through seven townships and back again until, five days and a punishing fifty-mile round trip later, the marathon ended where it had begun. Working sixty hours portal to portal for twenty dollars is only for a man who loves his work.

  The most select cat is the Old Smoothie. This sophisticate has discovered that few dogs can dance to his tune. Veteran of many a ball, he heads for a favorite mountaintop ten or twelve miles away. There he picks out a ballroom where he “trips the light fantastic” ahead of his partner while the firepower weaves his way on snowshoes through the snarled warp of the woods. The wisest old customer I ever saw was a big tom who approached a ledge below me. Well out of shotgun range, he casually sat down in front of a readily accessible motel door to listen to two hounds pounding on his trail a half-hour away. Finally he got up, stretched, yawned, and sauntered into his bedroom for a well-earned catnap.