DFW Urban Wildlife

DATLELINE – Autumn 2024

This is an article I wish I didn’t feel compelled to write. Most of the time, people and urban wildlife are able to coexist without too much difficulty. In fact, the presence of urban wildlife often goes unnoticed by the busy people in the immediate area. But every so often, city-dwelling animals and people do come into conflict, and when that happens, it is almost always the animal that comes out on the losing end of the interaction.

Some forms of conflict with urban wildlife are inevitable. Traffic and the resulting roadkill are largely unavoidable; people have to go about their daily business. And then there are things like a Raccoons in the attic or Feral Hogs rooting a soccer field as examples of situations where it is reasonable and prudent to take action to control wildlife related problems.

Some wildlife issues have solutions that many folks find unpalatable and unpleasant. Other times, efforts to address wildlife problems create collateral damage. A good example is rodent control. It is generally understood that rat and mouse infestations have to be managed for a number of different reasons–with the most pressing being cleanliness and health. Rodenticides–often consisting of anticoagulants–are the go-to answer much of the time.

A major unintended consequence of using rodenticides is secondary poisoning of predators that feed on sick and dying rats and mice. Poisoned rodents are much easier for predators to catch than unpoisoned ones, making them tempting targets. Coyotes, Foxes, Bobcat, and birds of prey are frequently negatively impacted after consuming poisoned rats or mice. They can become sick or even die from secondary poisoning. This is unfortunate and tragic, but until a better solution than rodenticide is developed, it will likely remain a consequence we have to begrudgingly accept.

But there are other common manmade hazards to urban wildlife that are completely unnecessary and avoidable. One such example is going to be the subject of this article.

A few weeks ago, we spotted the little Bobcat kitten shown in the video below wandering through the landscaping of a neighbor’s front yard. This kitten is of interest for a couple of reasons. First, he is too young to be on his own. At this age, a juvenile Bobcat should still be under the care of its mother, patrolling with her, and learning how to hunt. This little guy has been orphaned for some reason.

The other thing to note about this kitten is the unusual collar around its neck. This so-called collar is not around the Bobcat’s neck by design. It is the result of a series of unfortunate events. This young Bobcat is in for a difficult time, and that collar is the root of all his problems.

The collar around the kitten’s neck is actually a section of pipe. More specifically, it is part of a rain gutter downspout extension like the one illustrated in the picture to the right. These rain gutter extensions are in common use all across the metroplex. In many neighborhoods, more houses have them than do not. Look for them next time you are out for a walk; you might be surprised to learn how ubiquitous they are.

You can buy downspout extensions like these for about $15 to $30 at most hardware stores and big-box retailers. They are used to redirect rainwater to better protect foundations and landscaping. These extenders are made of plastic and shaped in an accordion style so they can be bent, contracted, and extended as needed.

When new, these downspout extensions do not pose much of a danger to urban wildlife. But after a short time in the sun and weather, things begin to change. The plastic these pipes are made of becomes brittle with age, and they become more susceptible to breaking, particularly along the accordion folds. But even in this weakened, broken state, the pipes retain their integrity around their circumference, so when pieces snap off, they do so as complete, durable rings.

Here’s how these extenders become problems for Bobcats–of all ages, not just juveniles. The story starts with rats. Most folks don’t like to acknowledge it, but our neighborhoods typically host a sizable number of rats. These rats tend to be most active at night, so they go largely unseen by people. For most folks, it’s an out-of-sight, out-of-mind issue. But for Bobcats it is a different story. Bobcats rely on hunting rats for their very survival. For Bobcats, rats are a dietary staple.

When a Bobcat targets a rat, the rodent may attempt to escape by running into a downspout–including downspouts equipped with these plastic extension pipes. If the Bobcat sees the rat enter an extension pipe, in the excitement of the moment, the cat may attempt to continue the pursuit by pushing its head into the pipe. If the Bobcat’s head gets stuck, and the pipe is old and brittle, a tragic story begins. When the Bobcat struggles to free itself, a portion of the extension will break off along a fold and settle into an uncomfortable, contemptible collar around the hapless cat’s neck.

This is surely what happened to the little Bobcat kitten we saw in the neighbor’s yard. What’s more, the kitten lodging its head in the pipe almost certainly is why he was orphaned as well. The young Bobcat likely thrashed around quite violently when he realized his head was stuck. The ruckus caused by this reaction may have been enough to frighten his mother and siblings away. Or, if he was stuck for a long period of time before the section of pipe broke off completely, the mother may have had no other choice but to move on and leave the trapped kitten behind.

Now the Bobcat kitten has to make its way on its own, with the added burden of a bulky, uncomfortable collar around its neck. Neither situation bodes well for his long-term survival. Juveniles at this age are just learning to hunt for themselves and still largely depend on their mothers to provide food. Fortunately, young Bobcats are capable and intelligent. In places–like our neighborhood–where prey is abundant, this kitten should be able to find enough to eat–even low-quality foods like insects–until his hunting skills improve. If our little Bobcat were just orphaned, he would still have a reasonable chance to survive.

But the collar around his neck makes his situation much more difficult. The kitten will not be able to remove the collar. It is unlikely that he will be able to push the collar off, nor will he be able to chew through it. And if the plastic is broken in such a way as to create rough or sharp edges, the pipe collar may create wounds and sores that will further threaten the young Bobcat’s survival.

Some might be surprised to learn that this kind of situation is not uncommon. Over the years, there have been innumerable reports of many different individual Bobcats getting into similar trouble with broken downspout extenders. Some of these cats have managed to live their lives despite the annoyance of an unwanted collar. But many others are not so lucky. Some die from starvation when the pipes interfere with their ability to hunt. Some die from infection if the pipe creates wounds around their neck that are unable to heal. Some even die from strangulation as they grow too large for the pipe’s diameter.

Bobcats are extremely common throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Almost every neighborhood can be expected to have Bobcats living and hunting within its boundaries. If you see rabbits, squirrels, rats, and birds in your neighborhood, then you can be reasonably sure you have Bobcats living there too. That’s true even if you’ve never seen a Bobcat in your neighborhood. As a general rule, Bobcats prefer to avoid people and are very good at staying out of sight and going unseen.

An abundance of urban Bobcats, along with a plethora of rodents for them to hunt, combined with the commonplace use of rain gutter downspout extensions, means that there are plenty of opportunities for this kind of problem to occur. It’s a frustrating situation because it doesn’t have to be this way. It’s a problem that simply doesn’t have to exist. There are safeguards that can be put in place, and other–more wildlife friendly–options that can be used. Possible alternative solutions include: roll-up vinyl extenders, low-profile downspout extenders, open-top extenders, buried extenders, and attachments that reduce the extender’s diameter. Even just regularly replacing old, brittle extenders with new and full-strength versions would go a long way toward eliminating the problem.

I’m not an activist by nature, but I do like to share what I have learned about wildlife so my readers can make up their own minds about the topics I cover. I don’t prefer to preach. In a case like this, I see very little opportunity to make a consequential, immediate impact on the problem. These downspout extenders are in wide use all across the metroplex, and I’m sure most folks who have installed them are not even aware a problem exists. How would they know? People are busy with their own lives, and these incidents with Bobcats and extender pipes go largely sight unseen. In the scheme of things, this is a low-priority issue on the far periphery of what is important in the day-to-day lives of most of our neighbors.

But here’s the thing… this problem is imminently solvable. It’s not a hard problem. Further, I do believe that most people would care enough to take the appropriate steps to alleviate this unnecessary suffering, if only they knew it was something that needed to be addressed. So, this article is my humble attempt to raise awareness. I’m certainly not the first to try to draw attention to this issue, and my audience is limited in scope. But maybe this article will help in some way. Maybe word will slowly get out. Maybe–over the course of years–this issue can be successfully dealt with. You have to start somewhere.

And what about our little Bobcat kitten in trouble? What happened to him?

Well, some effort was made to assist him. We had hopes that if we could establish a pattern of behavior with the kitten, that we might be able to live trap him. Once captured, we would have a veterinarian remove the plastic collar.

We began by trying to reacquire him using trail cameras in the area of the neighborhood where he was first seen. But after two weeks of monitoring, it was clear the kitten was no longer around, and we felt we had missed our opportunity.

Then–just a week or so later–the orphaned Bobcat showed up again, this time on a trail camera located in the neighborhood greenbelt. But the news was not good. Somehow in the interim, the Bobcat kitten had gotten his left arm through the collar, so that it now ran around his neck on one side and under his arm on the other. A raw wound behind his arm was visible in a portion of the video we recorded.

To further complicate matters, this area of the greenbelt is home to large number and wide variety of wildlife. Raccoons and Striped Skunks wander through regularly. Even more concerning were two mother Bobcats–with seven adolescent kittens between them–that frequent the greenbelt. This situation would make live trapping the collared baby Bobcat very challenging–if not impossible. The last thing we would want to do is trap the wrong animal–particularly a dependent kitten, or worse, one of the mother Bobcats. To even have a chance, we would need to establish a very clear travel pattern for the kitten so we could target him specifically for trapping.

We continued to monitor the greenbelt for two more weeks, but unfortunately we never did see the troubled kitten again. Young kittens like this one do not have established territories, so when they are on their own, they tend to wander aimlessly, rather than patrol a routine circuit. He has likely moved on and is now far away. And while our efforts are ongoing, we don’t expect to have success at this point. Too much time has passed, and there are just too many complicating factors.

This situation is most likely a death sentence for the poor Bobcat kitten. But there is some hope. With the pipe collar now wrapped under one of his arms, it may be in a position where he can reach it with his mouth and chew through the plastic. In fact, a few days after our last photograph of the kitten with the collar, we recorded a picture of what appeared to be a lone Bobcat kitten–without a pipe collar! We cannot be sure if this is the same kitten or different one. Our hope is that the little guy did manage to finally free himself, but we may never know for sure.