Expert Says No Chance Rocky the Bobcat Is a Hybrid

Says People Should Never Think About Having One as a Pet

Apr 23, 2014

The jury is still out regarding Rocky, which owner Ginny Fine of Manahawkin says is a bobcat/domestic cat (Maine Coon cat) hybrid.

The N.J. Department of Environmental Protection Division of Fish and Wildlife doesn’t think Rocky is a hybrid and on April 11 convinced Stafford Township Municipal Court Judge Damian Murray to sign a warrant requiring a blood test to determine if he is instead a purebred bobcat. In the meantime, Rocky remains at Popcorn Park Zoo in Lacey Township.

A veterinarian took a sample of Rocky’s blood last Wednesday. It will be up to the Northeast Wildlife DNA Laboratory at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania to determine if the critter – which weighs, according to various published reports, between 32 and 38 pounds – has any domestic cat DNA. If he doesn’t, Fine won’t be getting her pet back, as it is illegal to own a bobcat in New Jersey without a permit.

The results of the test are expected within a few days. But a big-cat expert, Carole Baskin, says there is no way Rocky is a hybrid. There are plenty of urban legends about bobcat/domestic cat hybrids, said Baskin, but no DNA test has ever proven a hybrid existed. “She’s either a liar or a fool,” said Baskin of Fine.

Baskin is the founder and CEO of Tampa’s Big Cat Rescue, the largest accredited sanctuary in the country for abused and abandoned big cats. Located on 55 acres, Big Cat Rescue is home to over 100 animals representing 14 species, such as lions, tigers, cougars, leopards, servals, jungle cats, caracals, ocelots, lynxes, leopard cats and Geoffroy’s cats as well as bobcats. She is, however, most familiar with bobcats, about as familiar as a person can get.

Back in 1992, Baskin and her husband, who since died, were at an exotic animal auction buying llamas. A man walked in with a 6- month-old bobcat on a leash. His wife, he said, had purchased it as a pet but didn’t want it anymore. Baskin took her home and named her Windsong.

The bobcat took to Baskin. It didn’t, however, take to her husband (bobcats, she explains, often bond with one person and can be jealous and/or aggressive with others). So he decided he wanted to buy his own bobcat kitten.

In 1993, the couple traveled to Minnesota to visit a place that sold bobcat and lynx kittens as pets. They discovered a fur farm, where just a few cubs were sold as pets while the rest were raised to be slaughtered. The couple were so upset they bought all 56 available kittens. Thus was Big Cat Rescue born. Over the years, said Baskin, some 200 to 230 big cats have made their way to Big Cat Rescue, with 70 to 80 of them being bobcats.

Baskin’s attitude toward bobcats as pets has certainly changed in the intervening years. She says she would now never recommend anybody buying a bobcat kitten. “They’re so cute as kittens, but then they grow up to be bobcats.”
Adult bobcats are very prone to escape, as Fine has learned. (It was Rocky’s second escape that brought him to the attention of the police, the press and, eventually, Fish and Wildlife.) “They’re extremely smart and always looking to escape,” said Baskin.

That, however, isn’t the biggest problem. “In the wild a bobcat has a range of about 5 square miles,” she said. “They spend a lot of time spraying to mark their territory. They do that in homes, too. Male, female, spayed or neutered, it doesn’t matter, they spray.” You really, really wouldn’t want to smell the result, said Baskin.

So she now definitely advises against obtaining a bobcat for a pet. Many end up in her sanctuary or others, or in zoos such as Popcorn Park. Just as Fine worries about Rocky while he is at Popcorn Park, Baskin wonders if he’ll ever be happy and well-adjusted again. Bobcats, secretive creatures in the wild, don’t do well with zoo visitors staring at them. The best advice, Baskin says, for people wishing to avoid having a pet bobcat ending up in a zoo is simple – don’t get one as a pet in the first place.

— Rick Mellerup

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