Feline ambassador
Author chronicles her life with a bobcat named Bingham
Gwen Poe got a chance to relive her childhood when her parents came upon three baby bobcats exposed to the elements.
As a preteen Poe cared for an adult bobcat named Dorothy for several months in Bingham. The animal belonged to a local game warden. But the day came when the game warden took Dorothy home and Poe was left with memories of playing chase and later falling asleep with the bobcat.
It was not until 1975 when
Poe was married and living in Pasadena, California, that she would get an opportunity to once again care for another bobcat. Her parents found three orphaned male bobcat kittens in the town of Bingham. It was determined the mother had either been killed or bit by a snake making her unable to care for the kittens. Poe’s parents bottle fed and nurtured the kittens. When they were a couple months old Poe asked to take one of the cats back home to California.
Poe documented her experiences with her beloved bobcat in her book “Bingham the Bobcat.” The book is an easy read for children and adults. It is filled with photos and stories of the adventures of the bobcat and its fondness for traveling and paying visits to school children and the elderly.
Bingham was quite the social cat and was open to being pet, especially by someone who had his favorite treat of Gerber baby food in hand.
“Gerber’s baby food, he loved that treat,” Poe said. “So I could take that and take him to the schools and he’d just eat on the treats and everybody could pet him and he was just really easy. He never felt like he was threatened anytime.”
Bingham lived on a recommended diet of ZuPreem, and given turkey or chicken Gerber baby food as bonus that helped get him acclimated around new people.
“They were always thrilled when I was invited to a school,” Poe said. “…When I took him to
the schools I would talk about the bobcat and where he came from and talk about conservation. …It was always a pleasure to be at a school with him and likewise in the nursing home.”
Bingham, who weighed about 25 pounds fully grown, enjoyed jumping onto people’s shoulders.
“You could carry him on your shoulder and my husband carried him on his shoulder,” Poe said. “It was fun when he was looking for attention sometimes people weren’t paying attention and he would jump on their shoulder.”
Shoulder carry was the best mode of transportation for Bingham. He always wore a body harness with a long leash for his security but it never interfered with his playtime allowing Bingham to frolic.
Bingham passed away at 10 years of age but his legacy lives on. Artist Greg Whipple captured the essence of the majestic creature in bronze sculpture and Australian artist Geoff Roberts Coe painted watercolor images of the unique bobcat. Poe had Bingham taxidermied after his death, and considered donating it to a school that Bingham once visited, but could not emotionally part with it. The school’s mascot is a bobcat.
Poe instead decided to share Bingham with the world mainly to preserve his memory for generations to come.
“As you see in the pictures in the book I have several children, and I wanted to write something down that would be lasting,” she explained. “I have enough material that I could write 100 pages long and so it took me a long, long time to develop the determination to get something done and to fix things and tell the story. It’s kind of like a biographical issue that’s a good 10 years of my life I spent sharing and caring and helping with conservation efforts. … He was a good ambassador. … What prompted me to do it was the idea that I’m going to be gone someday and the story will still be here.”