According to New Jersey officials, there are no mountain lions in the Garden State, but there’s a growing number of people online who beg to differ. A quick Google search brings up tons, and I mean tons, of reported sightings of cats that were, allegedly, not bobcats.
However, I think we can all agree that there certainly are no wild tigers in New Jersey…
Taken in a man’s backyard, we see the moments after a mother deer and her fawn were attacked by what the man described as a “pack of coyotes or a giant bear.” Given what we see later, I’m going to assume it was neither of those two, but regardless, the result was the poor fawn badly injured.
We see the mother trying to stamp her hooves to scare off the unseen predators, but it also looks like she maybe have made things worse by accidentally stomping on her young who appeared to be mortally wounded.
The video then cuts to a few moments later when the predator that potentially caused this damage revealed itself. A giant, and I mean GIANT bobcat comes out of the tree line to snatch up the still writhing fawn.
Now, given bobcats can grow to be 35 pounds, 2 feet tall, and 4 feet long, it appears that this kitty is a monster one, but it can be difficult to estimate true size from just a video. Regardless, the man approaching it during its harvest was a bad idea, despite his wife pleading from them to help.
“Let’s go help him… let’s go help him”
Like really? What are you gonna do?
You can hear his commentary in the video:
“It’s a bobcat with a baby deer. I’m pretty close… Oh he don’t like me, oh he’s looking right at me. He looks like a tiger!”
Yeah, I’m sure he doesn’t like you and if you think it looks like a tiger, you may want to avoid getting closer. At the same time, shoutout to this guy for getting the video for us. He later provided more context in the comments, explaining that the bobcat took a run at mom too and eventually she just took off, forced to leave her fawn behind:
“What happened was mom was trying to protect the baby, it was a wild fight… and the cat went for the moms legs and neck once mom fled the scene the cat ate the baby.”
Even though New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the country, there’s still plenty of wildlife around that you have to watch out for… it just means you’ll probably get the chance to watch it from your backyard.
