By Christine M. Quirk and Greta Gaffin — Christine@concordbridge.org
When Jaime Webster saw a bobkitten crossing Lowell Road in September, she thought it might be a rabbit or a dog.
“At first I was like, ‘That’s a really big bunny,’” she said.
Two bobkittens and their mom — bobcat fathers don’t participate in raising the young — live in the woods near Middlesex School. Science teacher Willy Hutcheson runs the @estabrooknature account on Instagram, posting trail cam pictures of the bobcats and other critters.
“Bobcats have been around for a while,” he said. “Locally, there’s been an uptick in activity because one family group has denned near campus.”
The bobcat family has fans among the Middlesex students.
“Ever since the bobcats arrived onto campus, I have been an avid fan of them,” said sophomore Theo Martin. “Often I will see the trail cam footage and see a spot where they are hunting or playing and think, wait, I ran past there in cross country practice a week ago!”
Don’t be afraid
Freshman Alex DeChiara said that when he was younger, he feared bobcats, thinking they hunted children. As he grew older, he realized that like most wild animals, they don’t seek to interact with people.
Hutcheson agreed, pointing out that bobcats aren’t dangerous.
“People always care more about the threat a bobcat poses than what a bobcat represents,” he said.
For example, because bobcats primarily eat rodents and birds, it’s good for gardeners to have them around, Hutcheson said, because it means fewer squirrels and rabbits to eat the produce.
Hutcheson said Concord was historically an agricultural community, but now, there’s more forest for animals to roam than a century ago. The Middlesex campus has 200 acres in the Estabrook Woods, offering a suitable habitat that didn’t exist before.
“I was surprised when [I] saw the footage of the bobcats on Middlesex campus and Estabrook Nature. I thought that they lived in mountainous terrain,” Alex said. “I thought that they would not be in a hundred-mile radius of Boston or even Concord.”
“It’s exciting for us to know we’re stewarding these resources that support predators,” added Hutcheson.
Drive carefully
Webster, who was excited to see the bobcats, agreed, saying that she’s glad they’re around and called them representative of a prosperous ecosystem. She hopes the town considers adding a Bobcat Crossing sign — just as another road has had a Fisher Crossing sign — to alert drivers to their presence.
“Just wanted to alert drivers of a family of bobcats who are regularly crossing Lowell Road in the Middlesex School area,” Webster posted on Facebook. “…The bobkittens were playing chase, the chaser got scared by the cars approaching, froze, and eventually darted back across the road.”
Sophomore Theo, a boarding student from Colorado, said knowing the bobcats are on campus reminds him of home.
“I think our school is very lucky to have a family of such cool animals living amongst us,” he said.
“I can recall particularly a clip posted on Estabrook nature of the mother bobcat and her young babies running and climbing up trees, and that warmed my heart a lot.”
