Published: August 28, 2008 11:39 am            

Claws cause for pause

Resident says it wasn't mountain lion but bobcat she saw in the woods

San Marcos — There’s no doubt that the vast greenspace that backs Burleson Street contains a fair amount of wildlife. Residents routinely see deer, possums, raccoons and the like.

There have even been reports of a mountain lion, which a state wildlife official is investigating.

But one resident near where the undeveloped area interfaces with neighborhoods says what she and her boyfriend saw a few weeks ago wasn’t a cougar but a bobcat.

Krystal Foster, who lives in a fourplex on Bracewood Circle, said she and her boyfriend were barbecuing chicken late one night a couple of weeks ago when they heard a “loud yowling cat-like sound” and a “rustling in the bushes.”

At just about the time the couple were taking the chicken off the grill they saw it.

“This thing was sitting there just in the woods, purring and growling at us.”

Needless to say, the couple grabbed the chicken and headed back into the house.

Foster says they continued to hear the cat after that. “We heard him crying for a little while It’s so hot and dry, I figured he was coming up to look for something to eat or drink.”

Foster, who has lived along the IH-35 corridor for years and had previous encounters with wildlife, said she’s convinced of what she saw at a distance of 25 or 30 feet.

“I’m pretty sure it was a bobcat because it had tufted ears. This was a big cat with pretty good sized paws. It wasn’t just a regular house cat. It was about the size of a big dog.”

Foster said the experienced was bittersweet.

“It was kind of scary but at the same time beautiful. I feel so sad for him, with all these houses his habitat is gone.”

Following the encounter, Foster and her boyfriend alerted neighbors to watch out when their children were outside.

During her two years on Bracewood Circle, Foster said she’s seen lots of deer along with a couple of foxes. The bobcat, she said, she had heard before in the still of the night.

And, she has seen a mountain lion as well. Prior to moving to San Marcos, Foster worked in the office of a real estate company at Canyon Lake. “All of a sudden I saw a deer with horns come running through really fast, and the next thing I know a cat came running after him and I realized, ‘Oh, my God. It’s a mountain lion.’”

Foster said when she mentioned the incident to her boss, she found out it wasn’t such an unusual sighting.

“But they could have warned me,” she said.

As for the reported mountain lion sighting in the area, an official from Texas Parks and Wildlife is due back on Friday to check on cameras set up last week.

        

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