Well, perhaps not all that random when you're a train conductor and there's a bobcat frozen to the track

Bobcat frozen to train track near Trail rescued by a train conductor

A little bobcat was enjoying his breakfast of duck just outside Trail when he froze to the train track he’d been sitting on. Lucky for the cat, a train crew spotted him and came to the rescue.

Conductor Coby Reid took to social media to share his discovery earlier this week.

Reid said they used warm water to free the cat from the rail.

This comes as Kamloops Conservation Officers caution the public about more bobcat sightings that normal. Bobcats pose no threat to humans, but have been known to attack small pets or livestock.

Trail, BC is near the eastern BC/Washington border, about 100 miles north of Spokane.

I was out sniping rabbits yesterday when I came up on a large bobcat carrying a freshly killed rabbit. I left it alone. They gotta eat too and I already had two rabbits in my bag.

That poor critter was looking at all kinds of misery, pain and death. Kudos to a sharp-eyed and kind train crew who saved it from all that.
Oldbrownhat, thanks for the good news. I needed some.

I know bobcats take a few fawns, quail, and turkeys (not to mention a lot of rabbits and squirrels), but I've never felt like they were enough a problem to warrant me shooting them...fact is I've enjoyed the few times I've seen them in the wild.

Coyotes are whole different matter...if I get a chance I will do my best to make them DRT.

Don

__________________
Laus Deo! <><

A great story, thanks!

__________________
No baby we aint

Well, it was either this or speed up and make it quick. I like this way better.

__________________
The best I can with what I got

Thank you for sharing such a heart-warming story!

And so, today, my faith in humanity is restored.
Temporary, though it may be.

All our kitties will get an extra scratch and hug tonight.

We ALL need as much good news as we can get these days

Coyotes are a different story. They kill everything, including family pets. I lost a little dog and a favorite cat to them. Back when I was working I used to flatten them with the cruiser. If one shows up on a deer hunt it turns into a coyote hunt.

How in the world did they see him in time to get the train stopped?

About 13 or 14 Februarys ago I was bring in fire wood on a Saturday morning. A tiny cream colored kitten came up to me begging a meal. We were completely out of barn cats, so I thought this was a great recruiting opportunity! We had no milk, or cat food in the house, so I broke up a few pieces of bread and opened a can of condensed milk and gave half of it to the kitten. I fed him next to the "Cat Box", a cardboard box inside an outbuilding with a hunk of blanket in it for bedding. After talking to the wife, we decided to keep him permanently. So I took the truck into a small town to buy a bag of dry cat food. As I went down the road, about evert 300 yards was a dead kitten in the road! Some shmuck had thrown them out the window at high speed!<, The only reason my kitten was alive was they had turned a corner, and threw him out at a slower speed. (he did have a scar on his face and a bad front paw for the rest of his life.) A few days later it was supposed to get down to -20F. That is too cold to sleep in the cat box alone! So I took it to my M-I-L's house to see if the as yet unnamed kitten could stay in he heated garage for a few days. Mom was not happy about but OK for three days only!

By day two the unnamed kitten had been given the name Toby and moved into mom's house, never to see my farm again! My M-I-L developed Alzheimer's a few years later. Toby was the most attentive companion anyone could dream of. when at the house Toby usually would hide from all humans, especially all preteen grandkids! But sometimes he would appear at my feet, give me a few rubs like when he first approached me, as if to say "I remember you, THANKS!" Toby outlasted mom by 5 years with my sister-in-law, and was just forever asleep on afternoon. He was perhaps the smartest cat I ever saw, and to think his 5 siblings and almost him, were wasted on a frozen country road, because nobody ask if i wanted a cat or three!

Ivan

I was pheasant hunting in the Oklahoma panhandle when on my first
night a winter storm blew in. Temp. about 20 with blowing snow and
as I was unloading my gear I heard a cat crying. A small kitten was
under my truck near the exhaust pipe, I suppose for a little warmth.
I took it into the room and called the front desk as to the owner, the
desk informed me that animal control would be out Monday, two days
later, and I said the kitten would be dead by then.
So, back out into the blizzard I went to Safeway for some milk and kitten
food. Long story short, kitten came home with me and I called her
Panhandle Slim, most of the time just Baby Cat. She only lived 8 years
and is buried in the back yard along the fence line to the mule pasture.

This also happened about a mile from me last August (Story here.) A woman was driving up the road and saw it happen, and rescued the cat. GoFundMe campaign was set up and it was saved. I think the vet I use took care of it.

I'm not a supporter of the death penalty.... but I will make exceptions.

You have to wonder. Must have been going very slowly and been keeping a very sharp eye out. From the ppicit doesn't look like that's a stretch of rail with much reason to be going slow on. I bet that kitty saw all nine of its lives lash before its eyes whenit saw the train coming.

I have a bit of trouble understanding the hate for coyotes and the acceptance/love for bobcats. Both are doing what they do to stay alive.

If bobcats were as numerous and prevalent as coyotes, they would also take pets as mountain lions are known to do.

Don't want to lose your cat or purse dog to natural predators? Keep them inside or under surveillance when outside.

And just by the way, domestic house cats, and feral cats, kill more birds and small mammals than either coyotes or wild cats.

I used to enjoy watching deer in my yard, I'd see 5 or 6 (or more) of them at once. This went on for years. Then one winter coyotes moved into the neighborhood, we could hear them howl every night. They cleaned out all of the deer, never saw another deer for many years, and never in the numbers I used to see them. My neighborhood bobcat does nothing more than thin the gray squirrel population. Guess which critters I like and dislike ...

Got no special hatred of coyotes. I am amazed at their adaptability and resilience. That said, there used to be money in the fur. At one time a good thick fur was going for $250+. Not so much anymore due to the backlash against wearing fur. I remember me and my father taking 4 one afternoon with a mouth blown call. After the first 2, I just curled them up infront of us like they were sleeping. Kinda like decoys.

__________________
The best I can with what I got

I have a problem with this story.

I used to work at a coal fired power plant. We got a coal train a bout 3 times a month. The train came off the main track to a spur. The spur was a mile and a half long uphill.

According to the train crew they started braking as soon as they hit the spur and it took the whole mile to get the train slowed down enough to stop. The last half mile the train was at walking speed and they were able to stop within 10 feet of the gate. They're almost never able to stop before hitting a car on the tracks, there's no way you'd see something as small as a bobcat in time to stop.

There's also the fact that it costs a lot of money to stop a train. IF this actually happened I'd bet whoever made the decision to stop the train was unemployed by the end of the day.

Having said that I found the story in a few different places and none of them mention stopping a train. It's possible they found the bobcat in a train yard and freed it. That I have no problem believing

__________________
Retired Career Security Guard

Fair enough, but it has hit our mainstream media. Here's a more detailed article from the CBC, with a short video of its release as well as a 7 minute radio interview.

I think the article text is short enough that I can quote it here:

It wasn't what Coby Reid and his colleagues expected to find as they completed track inspections Thursday morning just outside of Trail, in southeastern B.C.

A bobcat's hind paws were frozen to the tracks. In front of it, a breakfast of fresh duck.

"At first we approached it, and we were going to actually cover it up with a coat," before freeing it, Reid told Radio West host Sarah Penton.

But the bobcat began to hiss, growl and lunge.

"It definitely wasn't the cute cat that you see in the picture," said Reid with a chuckle, adding he was surprised that such a low-pitched and fearsome sound could come from such a small animal.

It should be noted, the CBC has not independently corroborated that the feline in question was indeed a bobcat and not the confusingly similar lynx — dopplegangers that even stump the experts.

Reid, a train conductor, believes the bobcat plucked a duck from the nearby river Thursday morning and dragged it up to the tracks for its morning feast. But as the bobcat was likely wet and the weather so cold, it found itself trapped.

While the bobcat appeared cute, they soon found out it was also feisty as it growled and lunged at them while they tried to free it.

The workers called their boss who brought a pail of warm water.

Within an hour from when they first found it, the bobcat was freed, but Reid says it wasn't quite ready to give up its prime dining location. Or, more likely, didn't want to part with its half-eaten waterfowl.

Reid says they had to scare him off, then chucked the leftovers to the side.

And luck was with the bobcat that day because a train sped through about 30 minutes after he left.

Friday morning, during another track inspection, Reid said he spotted some bobcat tracks along the rail in the same area.

"We know he's doing well," he said.

The answer is right here.

As I speculated, they were conducting a track inspection, presumably on foot. I have no problem believing this happened

__________________
Retired Career Security Guard

Some PA farmers believe that the PA Game Commission introduced coyotes in the 1980's

I don't know about that, but I never heard of coyotes in PA until the 1990's.

And you are correct about the cats killing the birds.

I love my 2 buddies, and they are indoor only.

Attached Images

20210220_153942.jpg (87.6 KB, 20 views)

__________________
BTDT, Got The T-Shirt

Which just gors to show that it helps to have ALL the information. That article hadn't been run when I started the thread, so thanks for making me go digging.

Having lived beside a RR for 35 years I know that they had track inspections nearly every day by a pickup truck fitted to the rails. They could stop very quickly and clean up anything that was on the tracks. So this story seems entirely possible and true.
Not throwing dispersions but some people have negative reactions to to every story. I have a brother who reacts to my every comment with a negative. Some people just delight in that but to me life is too short for that negativity.

Well, to be fair, Smoke made a valid point which resulted in getting more info But yes, some people do seem to take delight in "raining on the parade."

I was wild boar hunting with a friend and at the start we saw a Coyote about 50 yards away. I had my Browning 92 .44 Magnum and my friend had slugs in his shotgun. He told me to shoot the coyote because there's farms around there where thy're considered a PIA. Well, I don't have a farm around there and I had nothing against that coyote so I didn't shoot him. Plus I didn't want to make a bunch of noise. But if I lived around there and they were eating my chickens or goats, then it would be a different story.

The coyote has all but wiped out the ground nesting birds and the reptile population (especially the Horned Lizard) in Southern Nevada. The only thing that comes close in level of destruction is Homo Sapiens.

Yes, if the Bobcat were around in the same numbers then "see it, kill it" would apply as it does to coyotes in this state.

As for people keeping their pets safe, you make a great point. I get the stink eye when I point out that a few stucco stick homes and asphalt does not mean the desert has gone away. Just lift up your eyes.

__________________
Release the Kraken

Gaffer is correct. My son in law works for CSX and after reading the story he said the inspection crew was likely using a Hi-Rail truck that could stop quickly.

You will enjoy this lynx story.
A Prince George man came out to his coop and found a lynx feeding on two chickens it had just killed, no shooting or trying to harm it the man grabbed it by the nape of its neck and gave it a lecture and took it deep into the woods and let it go, because it was so skinny he let the animal keep the kills.

I just read that one yesterday! Actually in Burns Lake. The story and a short video, is here:

‘Let’s see the damage you did, buddy,’ Chris Paulson says to the wild cat

The cat's demeanor is amazing. You'd think it would be pretty combative but it just seems to be pouting. (Hmmm... I wonder what was in those chickens...)

Attached Images

Chris Paulsen and lynx.jpg (130.5 KB, 17 views)

Hand in the cookie jar look, me bad!!!!

It's an instinct thing. If you grab a cat by the scruff of his neck it just goes limp.

__________________
Retired Career Security Guard

As the fella in the video said. Nonetheless, the bigger the kitty (and the bigger the claws) the more "iffy" that can be! More power to him, but I'm not sure I'd have the cojones to try it myself!

There is a tourist attraction called Rock Ledge Ranch in Colorado Springs. It was a working farm since the late 1850s. Then the city bought it and turned it into a tourist destination.

I used to have a job doing Security checks out there every night. I walked around the chicken coops one night and almost stepped on this guy.



According to the caretaker it was a female bobcat who was semi-domesticated because they fed it mice that they caught in the barn in live traps.

I have to admit she did not seem the least bit intimidated by me and she sat there while I got out my phone and took her picture and then she got up and WALKED away

__________________
Retired Career Security Guard

The thing is, getting ahold of them. Ain't as easy as a house cat. You grab a Black Mamba right behind his head and he can't bite you. Getting to the back of his head without getting bit is the fun part. Also, don't try that nape of the neck thing with a tiger!

__________________
The best I can with what I got