So much for cats looking out for each other out in the wild.
This breathtaking video was taken in Chilliwack, British Columbia, and yes, that’s a real place. As it turns out, Chilliwack is an actual city, and not just something you say after you walk out of a Skyline Chili restaurant.
Tammy Jordan, a B.C. resident, was looking out her kitchen window as she prepared dinner when she saw a cougar and a bobcat battling it out in a tree top. According to reports, the tree they were fighting in stood at almost 100 feet tall, and the two wild cats were fighting at the very peak.
Jordan said that she almost couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw the fight unfolding in front of her, and said that one of the reasons she noticed the sky-high scuffle was due to the noises coming from the tree:
“I thought maybe it was a raccoon (at first). I never heard the cougar make a noise, but the bobcat was definitely growling and hissing.”
In the clip, you’ll see that the bobcat was doing its best to put distance between itself and the cougar chasing it, and eventually ran out of room when it got to the very top of the tree. The two animals quite literally had a cat fight once they both reached the tallest part of the tree.
Though we don’t get to see how the battle ends, the size mismatch (and positioning in the tree) favored the cougar. As Mollie Cameron, a Pacific Wild Wildlife Specialist, put it:
“If the cougar got any one of its paw on it, it more than likely was a very quick death for that bobcat.”
That’s really too bad, because I’d say most people that view the footage are rooting for the bobcat to somehow make it out alive. The small animal would have needed to get really creative to dodge the cougar, or been brave enough to take its chances jumping from the tree.
Tammy Jordan told CTV News that she was holding out hope the bobcat somehow pulled through:
“It was sad that…I really hope that it got away, but it was pretty cool.”
You can view the high-stakes show down in the clip below, which also features videos and pictures from a rare cougar-versus-wolf encounter, as well as a documented case of a seal killing and eating an octopus.
It’s a 3-for-1 video really:
