BOBCAT YEAR

by Hope Ryden ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 27, 1981

Ryden's extensive observation of wild and captive bobcats and her thorough knowledge of the literature on cats and bobcats result in a narrative of exceptional vitality, full of individual situations and reactions that lift this above the ""typical"" composite yet illustrate behavior patterns common to the species. From a birth that has its own unique course and individual drama, Ryden follows a male kitten through his months of dependence--first on his mother and then, after he is swept downstream and stranded outside her territory, on the elder female who finds and rescues him. The bobcat's slow education in hunting is seen as a learning process necessary for assembling his disparate inborn actions into purposeful sequences in appropriate circumstances. Ryden also shows us his mother's violent and extended mating session with a male from outside her territory. She informs us through the female bobcats' behavior of the species' territorial behavior and the survival advantages of mutual avoidance--an adaptation most unlike that of the social wolves, for example. She points up the interdependence of other animal populations in the area--and the bobcats' dependence on their fluctuations during a harsh winter; and she deplores with feeling the ""organized carnage"" of livestock growers, trophy and hide hunters, and the wildlife managers who are essentially in their service.

Pub Date: Oct. 27, 1981

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1981

Categories: NONFICTION