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| The motion-activated camera in the backyard of Julie Morgan's home in Boston Heights snapped this photograph of a bobcat at 1:40 a.m. Sunday. |
Michael Sangiacomo, The Plain Dealer
With Tonya Sams / Plain Dealer Reporter
BOSTON HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Julie Morgan could not believe the image on her backyard motion-activated camera.
Her camera snapped a photograph of a bobcat.
"That was a one in a million shot," the 38-year-old mother said in a phone interview Friday night. "My camera has taken pictures of normal animals like deer and coyotes, but that was the first time I had seen evidence of a bobcat in the area."
The camera shot the photograph at 1:40 a.m. Sunday.
Morgan keeps the camera in the woods, which is part of the two acres she owns near the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
Morgan sent the photo to her friend Frank Satullo, who runs Ohio Traveler, an online travel magazine at ohiotraveler.com, who posted the picture Thursday. The photo is creating a buzz in the naturalist world.
"Neighbors had spotted the bobcat before, but no one has ever gotten a photo of it until now," Satullo said.
Cuyahoga Valley National Park Resource Manager Lisa Petit was excited about the prospect of a confirmed bobcat sighting. She said they have been hearing reports of sightings for the past three years from people who live near the park, including Boston Heights, but had seen no proof.
"This would be the first verification that I am aware of in the park area," she said. "I believe that it's likely that it's a bobcat who is coming from somewhere else -- southern Ohio, West Virginia or Pennsylvania."
She said bobcats pose no threat to people or pets.
"They are very secretive, even more secretive than coyotes," she said. "They prey on small animals like rabbits and are very important to the ecosystem."
Morgan said for that reason, she's not afraid that she will be in any danger of the bobcat.
Boston Heights police said they knew nothing about it.
"Bobcat sighting? We have not heard that," Patrolman Joe Darga said Thursday. "Being close to the park, we see turkeys, coyotes and other animals all the time. This is the first time for a bobcat."
Dan Kramer, wildlife manager with the Ohio Division of Wildlife, has seen the picture and said the division staff has no reason to doubt its authenticity.
"The number of verified sightings of bobcats have been increasing in southeast Ohio," he said. "There were 92 verified sightings in 2009, up from 65 in 2008. They are coming farther north, as close as Stark County. There was one killed on I-90 in Lake County about 10 years ago, and there have been sightings in Ashtabula."
He said that as the population increases, the young males will travel farther to make their own way. He said it is also possible that it escaped, or was released, from an exotic-animal collector.
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/09/snap_of_a_shutter_confirms_bob.html
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