Sleeping with the Enemy

A three day old fawn and a three week old bobcat were rescued during the Santa Barbara fires two weeks ago. Though rescued wild animals, especially of different species, are not usually kept together, workers were forced to place animals anywhere they could. These two ended up in the Santa Barbara County Dispatch Office, where they immediately became buddies and cuddled for several hours under a desk.

One of the many ironies of the situation is that not only would these two be unlikely friends in the wild, they would most likely be enemies. In the winter, when food is scarce, bobcats often eat deer.

There are many instances of interspecies relationships but very few which involve predator and prey. Is it possible that this fawn and cat relationship will be detrimental to these animals when they are returned to the wild? Will the bobcat not recognize fawn as potential prey and starve rather than kill it? Will the fawn not know bobcats are predators and be too easy a target?

This may seem extreme but while humans learn from their parents over several years, animals do so over a much shorter time period, often a max of one year. So, time spent with parents as a baby is far more important in terms of learning essential life skills. Likewise, experiences from childhood bear more weight in terms of influence.

Though animal behavior is interesting, pondering this situation is taking up too much time; I was supposed to leave for a weekend in San Diego an hour ago. So, I am going to try and relate something from my childhood to this situation in order to distract you from the fact that I am tying nothing together here.

When I was about three, my parents bought a plastic blow-up octopus that attached to the sprinkler head. While my brother and I ran around the yard, the octopus would erratically fly/jump all over the place spraying water out its long purple tentacles. This was an endlessly fun way to spend a humid summer day in New York. We loved the octopus and since I attributed human emotion to all of my toys, I believed Octi, as we called him, loved us back for our undying devotion to his epileptic-like mayhem.

Just as the fawn didn't fear the bobcat, I didn't fear Octi...which is why it was a shock when he wrapped a tentacle around my neck and squeezed with all his might until I was as purple as his tentacles. My father ran outside and wrestled the "predator" from me, the "prey." So, that fawn should watch out cause that bobcat biatch will give her a beat down and she won't have my dad, or her deer mother, to save her. Wow, sort of made this semi-work.*

*Not really, but thanks for sticking with me anyway.