<\/p>\n
Action News Now reporter Jerry Olenyn speaks with a man who lives in the California Park neighborhood in Chico that captured a bobcat wandering around his backyard on multiple occasions.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
CHICO, Calif. \u2014 A bobcat has been spotted wandering through a Chico neighborhood, sparking fascination among homeowners and prompting reminders to keep an eye on pets.<\/p>\n
The big cat was caught on video as recently as Friday morning by Ronnie Zurita, who set up a backyard camera at his Cal Park home about two months ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen skunks and possums and turtles come up,\u201d Zurita said. \u201cJust a couple of days ago I looked at the camera and I saw what I thought was a cat, but I looked at it and said, \u2018Oh my gosh, that\u2019s a bobcat.\u2019 I didn\u2019t think there were bobcats around in California Park. So I was shocked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zurita, who has lived in Cal Park for 15 years, quickly alerted neighbors. It didn\u2019t take long for others to confirm they\u2019d also seen the animal.<\/p>\n
Jack Maurer, who lives across the street, said he spotted a bobcat near his property Thursday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw one on our waterfall last night jumping over it,\u201d Maurer said. \u201cIt could\u2019ve been the same one.\u201d<\/p>\n
So far, the bobcat hasn\u2019t caused problems, but Zurita said he is keeping a closer eye on his pets.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do come out with them when we let them out at night, but now I come out to check the backyard first just to make sure there\u2019s no bobcat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While bobcat sightings aren\u2019t unusual in Butte County, they are rare in the Cal Park area. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife notes bobcats are naturally wary of people and pose little threat to public safety. Still, officials recommend residents supervise pets outdoors, especially at night.<\/p>\n
For now, neighbors say they\u2019ll be watching closely \u2014 and keeping their cameras ready.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Action News Now reporter Jerry Olenyn speaks with a man who lives in the California Park neighborhood…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[14881,3729,3,79,452,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-169188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-butte-county","9":"tag-local","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}