According to an email from Jacob Berrick, Wellfleet animal control officer, Wellfleet police received a call on Feb. 13 about what appeared to be a dead cat on the dike, which straddles the end of the Herring River as it enters Wellfleet Harbor. A police officer retrieved the animal and placed it in cold storage.
The next day, Berrick, in consultation with a regional director of Mass Audubon, determined that the animal was a bobcat. Bobcats can kill domestic cats and small dog and certainly injure larger dogs. They eat mainly mice, rabbits, other rodents and birds, but on occasion can take down a deer. They will defend themselves from dogs so make sure you can recall your dog. They are most active dawn and dusk and do not hibernate. Only rabid ones have attacked people in Mass.
If you encounter one and it doesn't run away from you, throw a rock at it!
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