KYLE, Texas (KXAN) — A Kyle resident had an Easter animal encounter over the weekend, but it wasn’t with a bunny.
Sophia Johnson sent KXAN a video of a bobcat she came across while walking her dog in the Plum Creek area of Kyle. You can watch the video below.
Johnson said she was out for a walk on Easter Sunday with her chihuahua when the encounter happened. Her chihuahua can even be heard growling at the bobcat in the video.
Johnson said she took the sighting as an “auspicious sign.” She plays in a band — whose name has a feline connection — called Tiger Alley, and she’s writing an instrumental song in the bobcat’s honor.
“I am taking the sighting as an auspicious sign,” Johnson said in an email, “glad it was a bobcat and not a tiger that I ran into. Ha!”
Bobcats have previously been spotted near Central Texas neighborhoods. In October, a bobcat family was caught on video playing in a Pflugerville resident’s backyard. A couple weeks later, security footage captured a possible bobcat roaming in the backyard of a Round Rock subdivision.
Texas Parks and Wildlife told KXAN before that it’s “perfectly normal” for bobcats to be in urban areas, and to be active during both the day and night.
“In past studies, it has been found that bobcats in urban areas were more nocturnal than those in natural areas. However, a study in DFW published in 2019 found the bobcats were active during the day and their levels of activity did not change much by time of day,” TPWD wrote to KXAN in an email.
According to TPWD’s website, bobcat breeding starts in February, and about 50 days later (by March or April), kittens are born.
Dens can be found in caves and crevices or under logs, barns or sheds.