Video: 3 Possible Bobcats Roam Through Stratford Neighborhood

STRATFORD, CT — What appear to be three bobcats were captured on a surveillance video in Stratford for the second time in a month, as seen on the Neighbors app.

The video, titled "Bobcats this morning." and uploaded Wednesday to the app, shows what looks like three bobcats walking through a residential neighborhood. One of the animals climbs a set of steps on the property where the camera appears to be mounted and pauses there before continuing down the street.

Another video timestamped Jan. 2 and uploaded to the app earlier in the month also showed what looked to be three bobcats, two of which walked up the pathway of a Stratford home before exiting through the garden. The Jan. 2 video was timestamped shortly before 3 a.m., but Wednesday's video was recorded about 7:30 a.m.

Connecticut's bobcat population was once dwindling, until the animal was classified in the 1970s as a protected furbearer with no hunting or trapping seasons, according to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The bobcat population has since recovered due to legal protections, as well as improving forest habitat conditions.

In December, a 12-year-old boy in Fairfield was scratched by a bobcat and suffered a minor injury after encountering the animal in his backyard. However, bobcat attacks on people are extremely rare, according to the state environmental department's website, and the animals don't typically cause conflicts with human activities, although they do occasionally kill livestock and attack domestic cats.

Bobcats are most active just after dusk and before dawn, the website said. The environmental department is asking Connecticut residents who see bobcats to report the sightings to determine the size and distribution of the population. Anyone who spots a bobcat can notify the state by emailing deep.ctwildlife@ct.gov, posting on the Facebook page for the department's Bureau of Natural Resources at www.facebook.com/CTFishAndWildlife or recording observations through the free app iNaturalist.

For more information about bobcats in Connecticut, visit bit.ly/2ZTYJ1V.

Ring, the owner of the Neighbors app, is a Patch advertiser. Patch received no compensation for this article.