Bobcat Chasing Mature Buck

[Bigbendgyrene]

Thought some forum members might enjoy this recent trail camera capture of a bobcat chasing a mature whitetail buck in North Florida, with decent audio of the buck sharing two warning calls.

As for the bobcat, loved tracking its changes in the angle of attack depending on the direction the deer faced and moved. Watch the slow-motion replay and you can see the bobcat adjusting his initial chase path to the right of the buck based on the direction the deer is facing when paused instead of actually running directly to the spot where the buck is standing... then the bobcat makes lots of small shifts in direction to almost instantly match the fleeing buck.

Confident the buck survived the encounter, but proof a bobcat will give chase to a full-size deer when the opportunity presents itself.

 

[Jim Boyd]

Wow!

 

[sghoghunter]

Good video but looks like a house cat to me

 

[FloridaFF]

Wow.

 

[The Original Rooster]

Love me some bobcats! Not sure he’d want to catch that buck like he thinks he does!

 

[B. White]

Might be a young one that hasn't tangled with a hoofed critter yet. I had a bobcat come up under me one morning and it walked down a log and up under some thick stuff. A few mins later a good buck came in fast like he was on its trail and put his head down like he was going to stalk it and tear it up. Not sure what would have happened, since the buck was a good one and looked up at me and took one in the throat.

Last week I was half watching a little deer and looked up and a big no-neck bobcat was crossing about 50 yds from it. I saw it before it saw the deer, but the deer saw it and started stomping. Bobcat looked at deer and quickly decided to keep going where he was headed. I was surprised the little deer wasn't much more concerned and kept feeding another 20 mins.

 

[Bigbendgyrene]

Good video but looks like a house cat to me

Shoghunter, almost certain it's a bobcat and I say that for several reasons.

First, the video itself. Look closely at several snapshots from the clip and you can see the bobbed tail. There's no spot in the video showing any long tail typical of almost all housecats. Pair the bobbed tail with the marked "eyes" on the back of the cat's ears and I think it's safe to put money on bobcat.




Also have to add, out of tens of thousands of video captures I've had on my place, I've never gotten a single video or image of a housecat. That's likely due to my location, without a neighbor in site and sitting against an uninhabited 4,000 acre quail plantation.

Despite never having had a single housecat on camera, I'm guessing I had 100 or so bobcat video captures so far this year. Here's just a sample of daytime bobcat trail cam captures off my place and just sharing some specifically from the same plot as in the deer chase video.

 

[Bigbendgyrene]

Bobcat looked at deer and quickly decided to keep going where he was headed. I was surprised the little deer wasn't much more concerned and kept feeding another 20 mins.

Funny how different interactions can vary from encounter to encounter... though we're not in the African savanna, still think our animals are much like predators and prey there where they live and die trying to read and expend energy on perceived intentions.

Share the above as I have lots of coyotes at my place and have videos of them flat-out high-speed chasing deer, and even pack hunting/harassing an adult buck... but the above shared, also have videos with deer feeding in fields yards from coyotes just keeping eyes on them and even have at least two videos of bucks charging lone coyotes to run them off.

 

[B. White]

Funny how different interactions can vary from encounter to encounter... though we're not in the African savanna, still think our animals are much like predators and prey there where they live and die trying to read and expend energy on perceived intentions.

Share the above as I have lots of coyotes at my place and have videos of them flat-out high-speed chasing deer, and even pack hunting/harassing an adult buck... but the above shared, also have videos with deer feeding in fields yards from coyotes just keeping eyes on them and even have at least two videos of bucks charging lone coyotes to run them off.

Yep, I'm sure how hungry they are and past experience plays a big part in how much energy they will expend.

I've had cats pass by me several times since this post and haven't seen any here before (only been here three years). I have seen cats more than deer the past few days, and normally I can see at least one deer easily the first or last hour of daylight. It is still too early for me to blame it on cats, but if the deer activity on rye and clover doesn't pick up after another freeze, it will make me wonder.

 

[B. White]

I went ahead and popped a tom this evening at dark, after seeing no deer. I am not a lover of house or feral cats, but have always given bobcats a pass on a lease or public land. I've always liked to watch them, fox and fox squirrels as much as seeing deer. It is a little different at the house with my egg producers close by, plus I have just started seeing quail after three years of trying to keep some habitat that might attract them. Hoped to at least get a nice hide out of it and moved the crosshairs a couple of inches before squeezing off and thought maybe the 143 gr out of the creedmoor wouldn't expand too bad on a thin target, but I guess it hit rib and the exit took out a lot of hide.

I thought this would be a female, since it was easy to tell what it was close to dark and the fur pattern was light. The biggest I've seen was longer and darker and had that panther looking silhouette when it came by. Don't know a lot about them, but figured the female would be smaller and two toms wouldn't be hanging around each other. I hope the big one will now move on down the creek. Too much highway traffic near by for it to be safe here, if it avoids me.