Mama bobcat, adorable kittens found hiding inside hollow tree, California video shows

Despite a GPS tracker, National Park Service biologists were having a hard time locating a bobcat in the Santa Monica Mountains in California.

They suspected the bobcat, dubbed B-370, had a den with kittens somewhere nearby since GPS showed her returning to the same spot over and over, a press release says.

“I swear she’s in this tree, but I can’t find her,” biologist Joanne Moriarty told another biologist over radio. “Then I look up into this little tiny hole in the tree, and her face is just poking out at me. Of course, she’s been staring at me the whole time. I just happened to be in the right spot.”

A video captured by Moriarty with a remote camera on a pole showed the bobcat had built a den with three kittens in a cavity in the oak tree.

The video shows the mother bobcat peering curiously at the intruder while her kittens rummage around behind her inside the cavity.

Biologists returned the next day while the mother bobcat was out, probably hunting, to examine and tag her three kittens before returning them to their den, the release said.

Experts think the bobcat family took refuge in the tree - not a usual spot for a bobcat den - because a 2018 wildfire stripped the area of other vegetation.

“Very little vegetation has grown since the devastating fire destroyed close to half of the natural area in the Santa Monica Mountains and about 2/3 of the natural habitat in the Simi Hills,” the release said. The mama bobcat was originally found in the Simi Hills.

Bobcats and newborn kittens normally stay in a den for four to five weeks, then change dens frequently as the kittens grow. They will stay with their mother until they are 11 months old, the release says.

This story was originally published May 30, 2021 at 12:03 PM with the headline "Mama bobcat, adorable kittens found hiding inside hollow tree, California video shows."