Help the New Mexico Wildlife Center
When I heard the four shots, I knew that the mother bobcat had been killed.
A few days earlier, the mother had surprised me by rising from among trees as I walked behind my house. Two kittens were near her. The mother didn’t hiss. She just gave me the starkest look I ever received from an animal — big black pupils rimmed by yellow irises — and clearly warned me to keep a distance.
As much as I worried about my safety, I was struck by how glorious she looked: pointed ears, dark spots on sand-colored fur, bobbed tail, long back legs. Maybe 2 feet tall. Maybe 30 pounds. Magnificent.
So we considered each other, and I eased away. I hoped she’d
take her kittens and move on, but the next day she was still there, and now I wondered what to do. Should I call the state Game and Fish Department? Since the mother seemed accustomed to humans, would she be euthanized instead of transported to the wild?
The shots ended that debate. The mother wasn’t with her kittens in the morning, and the next day she wasn’t there, either. As the kittens climbed onto the roof and peered around for her, I remembered the New Mexico Wildlife Center 20 miles north of Santa Fe near Española.
One of its female biologists arrived at my house after dark. Using a flashlight, she set up two cage traps and baited them with mouse carcasses and gopher guts. The next day, the cages held two snarling bob kittens. My wife and I drove them to the Wildlife Center, got a tour and discovered that we’d fallen in love not only with the bobcats but also with the center itself.
Each year, it cares for hundreds of injured, orphaned and human-imprinted wild animals. For my bobcats, it’ll teach them how to survive when they’re old enough to be released into the mountains. That costs much more than you might think. My wife and I donated generously, but the center relies entirely on donations, and there are many other wild animals being rehabilitated there.
I’m an author. Rambo appeared in my debut novel, First Blood. I started a bobcat fund. Contributors receive a signed copy of one of my novels. (For details, contact me through www.davidmorrell.net.) But my efforts are hardly enough.
From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 7-8, the New Mexico Wildlife Center will have a rare open house in which visitors get to be up close and personal with hawks, eagles, owls, a gray fox (the only fox that climbs trees), adult bobcats and a host of other animals — plus a tour of the animal hospital. Children and adults alike will be transformed. The address is 19 Wheat St., Española. The phone number is 505-7539505.