FWC releases necropsy results related to bobcat’s mysterious death in Safety Harbor

Mystery surrounds bobcat's death

FOX 13's Jennifer Kveglis reports on the FWC revealing the necropsy results of the bizarre death of a bobcat found last spring in Safety Harbor.

SAFETY HARBOR, Fla. - The FWC has revealed the necropsy results of the bizarre death of a bobcat found last spring in Safety Harbor. The bobcat was lovingly named by neighbors in the Country Villas community, "Bobbi, the Bobcat."

In May, "Bobbi" was found dead, mysteriously dangling 30 feet in the air from a tree. Fairl Thomas with the Birds in Helping Hands organization said,

"It was such strange circumstances," said Fairl Thomas with the Birds in Helping Hands organization. "Rigor mortis had set in; it was in the tree. But, its forearms had kind of clung around one of the limbs."

Neighbors contacted the FWC and Thomas for help to retrieve it.

"From there, given the area that it was in, we wanted to investigate it with the possibility of potentially being poisoned with rodenticide," she said.

The FWC took it in for a necropsy, and this week it was revealed the cause of death is "inconclusive."

Thomas said the bobcat was found dead in an area where at least 10 cases of rodenticide poisoning were confirmed in birds of prey.

READ: Wildlife volunteers work to rescue young owl after four died from eating poisoned rats

"But that's not to say that other predators aren't becoming victim to the same poisoning that the birds of prey are," she said.

One case was back in 2022, when at least four owls tested positive for anticoagulant rat poisoning in Philippe Park, which causes internal bleeding.

"For example, a great-horned owl can eat as many as 15 rodents in a night," Thomas said. "If one of those 15 rodents every night has munched on rat poison at a bait station, it's going to slowly accumulate and kill that predator as well."

Thomas said the same goes for other predators like bobcats. She explained that it's a concern now in this case.

"We still really don't know. There was no trauma, no foul play like bullets or major wounds that had been inflicted by a human," she said.

FOX 13 reached out to the FWC for further explanation as to why the necropsy results are inconclusive, but did not receive a response as of Monday night.

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