{"id":199944,"date":"2026-03-21T02:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T02:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/199944\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T02:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T02:23:09","slug":"wildlife-sanctuary-releases-two-bobcats-in-hillsborough-county-after-rehabbing-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/199944\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildlife sanctuary releases two bobcats in Hillsborough County after rehabbing them"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TAMPA, Fla. – Two bobcats are now living on their own\u00a0in the wild on the coast of Old Tampa Bay. They now call Upper Tampa Bay Park<\/a> in Hillsborough County<\/a> home.<\/p>\n

What we know:<\/p>\n

The cats were just newborns when their burrow was interrupted by a construction crew. They were separated from their mom and likely would not have survived without help.<\/p>\n

Local perspective:<\/p>\n

Ashley Martin, the program coordinator for conservation and environmental land management in Hillsborough County, helped relocate the cubs.<\/p>\n

She said this park is one of a few locations where they can release wildlife in the area.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“This park is about 600 acres. It’s on a peninsula. Only about a hundred acres of that is used for our trails and picnic tables and stuff like that. The rest is just wild open spaces,” said Martin. “So, we already have a bobcat population. We’ve got all sorts of animals living here, so they’ve got plenty of space to live.”<\/p>\n

Dig deeper:<\/p>\n

One-year-old Orion, a male, and one-year-old Electra, a female, were nursed back to health by Owl\u2019s Nest Sanctuary for Wildlife<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Kris Porter is the founder & director. She was part of the team to rehab the bobcats.<\/p>\n

“It’s obviously bottles and around the clock feedings and that goes from, you know, there’s many parts of rehabilitation, from introduction to meat to introduction to play,” Porter said. “These guys have been pretty intense for the last four months.”<\/p>\n

What they’re saying:<\/p>\n

“You get anxious about it, and then you’re almost at peace that they’re going to be in a really good place, so they’re going to figure it out,” Porter said.<\/p>\n

The rehab crews made sure they gained weight and could hunt for themselves before releasing them into the wild on Friday.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“We’ve had to make sure that they know how to hunt native things, and so we’ve been teaching them, and I’ve done this 40 some years, so I know that when they get to a point that I know they’re ready,” Porter said.<\/p>\n

It took exactly a year to get these cubs ready to be on their own in the wild.<\/p>\n

Big picture view:<\/p>\n

According to the University of Florida\u00a0<\/a>Bobcats live all over the United States, in most of Mexico and in some parts of Canada.<\/p>\n

These cats require a smaller habitat area, so bobcats can survive the threats of urbanization better than larger cats.<\/p>\n

Florida is seeing a decline in the bobcat population, according to UF<\/a>. This could be because of rapid urbanization and growth in the state.<\/p>\n

The Source: Information in this story comes from interviews with Owl\u2019s Nest Sanctuary for Wildlife, a Hillsborough County official, and information from the University of Florida.<\/p>\n

Pets and Animals<\/a>Hillsborough County<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. – Two bobcats are now living on their own\u00a0in the wild on the coast of Old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[47,629,115,8713,135,137,136,628],"class_list":["post-199944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-fl","tag-hillsborough","tag-news","tag-pets-animals","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}