{"id":361732,"date":"2025-12-21T11:14:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T11:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/361732\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T11:14:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T11:14:04","slug":"video-captures-bobcat-encounter-in-slcs-avenues-neighborhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/361732\/","title":{"rendered":"Video captures bobcat encounter in SLC&#8217;s Avenues neighborhood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SALT LAKE CITY \u2014 A video of two bobcats on the prowl in the Avenues was gaining attention online Saturday as wildlife officers said sightings were likely to be a little more common in the weeks ahead during bobcat breeding season.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/SaltLakeCity\/comments\/1prfsmy\/just_two_bobcats_hunting_a_squirrel_in_the\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">video<\/a>, posted by Reddit user &#8216;Shaneblaster,&#8217; appeared to show the two bobcats hunting a squirrel up a tree.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is pretty lucky to capture this,&#8221; said commenter &#8216;Skibiscuit.&#8217; &#8220;I have yet to personally see a bobcat or cougar in my 15 years here. \u2026 I know I&#8217;ve been near them a few times, but they are quite stealthy when they want to be.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While officers with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources said the encounter was not reported to them, they acknowledged it was relatively rare to see a single bobcat, let alone capture video of two in broad daylight.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Bobcats are pretty solitary and are mainly active at dawn and dusk,&#8221; said DWR&#8217;s Central Region Conservation Outreach Manager Michael Packer. &#8220;They&#8217;re a bit elusive, so we don&#8217;t see them nearly as often, but they&#8217;re definitely there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Packer said while bobcats are predators, they tend to flee from contact with humans rather than confront them.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You are much bigger than any meal they are likely to pursue,&#8221; he said during an interview with KSL. &#8220;They prey on things like rabbits, smaller rodents, smaller reptiles, small mammals.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said on average, bobcat sightings are reported in Salt Lake County a half-dozen times per year.<\/p>\n<p>What to do when spotting a bobcat<\/p>\n<p>Packer said it was unnecessary to report the sightings unless the bobcats were killing pets, repeatedly killing animals on a property or acting aggressively toward people.<\/p>\n<p>According to Packer, maintaining distance and appreciation from afar is the best alternative.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Giving them their space to allow them to exist and us to exist mutually is always the preferred situation,&#8221; Packer said.<\/p>\n<p>Closer to the Ensign Peak trailhead Saturday afternoon, Salt Lake City resident Karl Wild said he had never seen a bobcat or mountain lion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We see a lot of deer, and we&#8217;ve seen a lot of (coyotes),&#8221; Wild said.<\/p>\n<p>After viewing the Reddit video, he seemed struck by the wildlife encounter caught on video.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think that&#8217;s great, I mean, yeah, get your camera out; if you see something, film it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I think they&#8217;re probably watching us and, yeah, we&#8217;ve just never seen them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\n                                    The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.\n                                <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SALT LAKE CITY \u2014 A video of two bobcats on the prowl in the Avenues was gaining attention&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[1147,1302,3811,192,3812,134,3729,7221,3,3813,3814,79,99,1505,2987,3324,2986,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-361732","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-cars","10":"tag-classifieds","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-homes","13":"tag-jobs","14":"tag-local","15":"tag-nature","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-radio","18":"tag-salt-lake","19":"tag-science","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-television","22":"tag-traffic","23":"tag-utah","24":"tag-weather","25":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361732","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=361732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}