Summer 2023

But ever since the Rancho Cañada unit’s 2018 opening, it’s been a bobcat bonanza like no other. Bobcats were walking right up to me within days! Clearly, multiple generations raised on a golf course have become so habit- uated to human activity that they essentially ignore people while going about their daily bobcat business: basking in the sun, grooming, sharpening claws, stalking, striking crane poses over gopher holes, catching and dispatching gophers, courting behavior, feeding their kit- tens and, ultimately, teaching juvenile offspring to hunt on their own. Bobcats (Lynx rufus) are universally called bobcats wherever found. While they’re com- monly observed here at Palo Corona Regional Park, all too often they’re mistakenly reported to park rangers as mountain lion sightings. Mountain lions have three to four foot long black-tipped tails, and an adult mountain lion is ordinarily five to ten times heavier than a Central Coast bobcat. (Bobcats also have a tail, but it’s only six to eight inches long and its underside is white.) Mountain lions (Puma concolor) may have any number of common names by region—painters, pan- thers, longtails, cougars, pumas—but Carmel Valley locals mostly refer to them as moun- The arrival of summer brings with it a plethora of bobcat kittens and, like all kittens, they are playful and love to frolic about, bounding like gazelles and mimicking their mothers in the art of the hunt. 166 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • S U M M E R 2 0 2 3