“We saw a bobcat today in Mt. Sutro by the Aldea Center,” commented reader RM on  MntSutro.com on 10 May 2012. We were fascinated.

[Edited to replace the public domain picture with one the reader sent us – taken in low-light conditions.]

[ETA: A naturalist who studied the picture thinks it’s probably a very large feral cat, because a bobcat would have a black tip to its tail and ears, and likely have visible ear-tufts.]

(This picture is a public domain photograph, not the actual bobcat the reader mentioned.)

Bobcats aren’t uncommon in wilderness areas around the Bay, and Tom Stienstra, one of our favorite journalists, wrote about them in the SF Chronicle’s blog recently. (Click HERE and HERE for links to his stories and pictures.) Someone told us they’d been sighted in Sharp Park in Pacifica.  But this was the first we’d heard of one in San Francisco.

Sutro Forest is amazing. Great horned owls. Coyotes. Forty kinds of birds. We are so fortunate to have this little piece of naturalized forest in the heart of San Francisco, and the wildlife habitat it provides. UCSF, please preserve this magical place.

[ETA2: Someone else said they’d seen a wildcat on Mt Davidson, which is not far from Mt Sutro. And the photo somewhat resembles this cat picture, taken on the Marin Headlands:

http://www.wildlifist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DSC7128_800w-copy.jpg ]