Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "Family's new kitten turns out to be a bobcat" video.

The challenge is that if that was an actual house cat, the right thing to do would have been to bring it to the vet to be fixed and then adopt it. At that age, it does look a bit odd for a cat, but there's all sorts of markings on cats and unless it does something strange like that weird sound, you might not realize what you've got.
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I'm sure that as long as you're careful it's fine. They can do some damage, but from what I understand probably not any more than a midsized dog would. I'm not sure that I'd want one around a small child though.
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@wilmagregg3131 Same applies to house cats though. They aren't domesticated. The big difference is that a bobcat is significantly larger and has much stronger jaws, so they can do damage above and beyond what a typical housecat could.
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@DavidEVogel Hmm, good point, essentially felines have kittens and panthera have cubs. So basically any cat cougar and smaller would have kittens. Anything larger would have cubs. Which is kind of a weird rule, but there you go.
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@0MGitsRayRay No, they wouldn't hunt humans, they're not large enough. Even cougars that are over a hundred pounds don't hunt humans. The only cats I know of that will hunt humans are hundreds of pounds. Unprovoked tiger attacks are a problem in some parts of the world, but bobcats just aren't big enough to be much of a threat to an adult human and they know it.
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@ViraLCyclopes In some places, you can shoot any cat that you see more than a few hundred feet from a building. I'm not aware of a similar rule with respect to dogs anywhere. The rule exists to protect the local wildlife against one of the most effective killing machines on the planet. As cute as they are, house cats have one of the highest success rates of any animal when they go after prey.
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They do have special care requirements, but unlike lions and tigers they don't kill people. But, depending upon where you live they may or may not be legal and you'd need a vet that knows how to work with them as they are large cats when compared with typical house cats.
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Not necessarily. Often times you're just seeing the young, the parents are somewhere in the vicinity. The worst is when you see a seemingly unaccompanied bear cub as the parent is usually nearby and can be rather upset by a human getting too close. Mind you, a bear can run faster than you'd probably expect, although somewhat slower down hill due to the front legs being shorter than the rear.
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The short answer is that you can't really. Without selective breeding like they did in Russia as an experiment, the best you get is an animal with the intelligence of a toddler and the dexterity to get into basically everything. Plus, I've seen raccoons in the wild that were easily the size of midsized dogs. Granted that was in an urban area, but still. The amount of trouble an animal that size with very functional hands is a lot.
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@simle6010 Yes, I remember going to the zoo when I was a kid and petting the lion cubs and the tiger in the cage next to it was also OK-ish to be petted. The problem is that these are still wild animals and if they get triggered by a sudden movement or the like, they can do a tremendous amount of damage. Even if the rest of the time they're perfectly friendly and well behaved. Bobcats are kind of tough because they're not that big, but in some ways that makes it worse because they are large enough to do some damage if they do bite or scratch.
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@strange4107 Yes, and if you take a kitten and it gets out, there's a pretty decent chance that it will figure out how to feed itself. Likewise, if a kitten is born and starts living independently, it can be a challenge to get them used to a house cat lifestyle. Chances are that you'll have an outdoor cat at best.
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@autumnrain7626 Most of the time such matings result in no viable offspring. It would be like if some sick perv screwed a chimp. Occasionally you'll get ones that live for a few years before dying. Then you've got ones like mules that can live an entire life, but are incapable of further reproduction.
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Yes, and if they did it that quickly,t he chances of the bobcat being successfully released is probably pretty good.
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