No I don't think so. But the bobcats seem to be new.

The bobcat attacks in the Villages of Lynnhaven/Ashland sure seem to be new. I have only seen three coyotes here in this area of the Villages since June 2005.

About the same number of dogs loose here in Lynnhaven. One of these was a beagle dumped off on Morven Parkway. Scuttlebutt was that someone drove by and just dropped the dog off in the street. The beagle may still be in the area as far as I know with a caring family.

Bobcat attacks?

Three of these over the past two months. At least, that is what the people here think that is pulling cats off of lanais after ripping through screens. They have all been near the Churchill Downs Rec Center or within a half mile radius of it.

from the site that must not be named about three weeks ago.

There was a second earlier snatching of a cat off of a Saludo Street lanai. A lady I know found the body of that cat ripped open with claws.

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I think the bobcat so-called attacks were someone's guess.

We lived beside bobcats and they never went in our screened pool area where our cats were in the six years we lived there. They often came out when we were having dinner outside on the lanai and stretched out on the grass. We did not feed them but we did hear that some bobcats lived alongside the homeless people in the woods like pets.

The cat's body looked like something ripped it open with claws and chewed on it. Coyote prey I assume would look quite different from bobcat prey. This is going by the woman who found the dead cat near Saludo Street house where it was taken off the lanai. The "meal" was not taken back to a den but eaten in the immediate vicinity of where it was snatched. Sounds like a bobcat's work but I am not a biologist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobcat

Great photography ... as usual!
When I take my dogs out in the evening, and let me say they are ALWAYS on a leash, I carry one of the pods my husband cuts out of our palm trees with me. They are about 3 1/2' long, quite pointy on the end and lightweight to carry. If you don't have palm trees, look in your neighbors lawn waste on Tuesday evenings. PS don't get the one's with all the seeds inside.

Rumors.

Something with sharp claws ripped open lanai screens in Lynnhaven and Ashland and took three cats off of these. One of the cat's bodies was found all ripped up with not much left of it my a woman I know who lives across the street from where two of these attacks were on Saludo Street. She is rightly terrified about the dog she walks at night near there. This is not rumor but coming from people in that immediate vicinity of Lynnhaven.

The Lynnhaven people I have talked to about this say that this was the work of a bobcat even though they have also seen coyotes in the neighborhood. They travel up the Belmont Golf Course.

I am not sure why some people have such doubts about something posted by someone in the neighborhood where these three attacks were. Ashland is close to Lynnhaven. I live in Lynnhaven but am nearer to Evelynton Loop than Saludo Street.

I have heard talk of some neighbors in the Saludo Street area planning on hiring a trapper to get this bobcat.

Tal, perhaps we need a little better CSI. The number of cats and cause of death seem to morph (I believe it was two cats and killer prairie wolves to start with).

I kind of trust the people most affected by the bobcats to have the best information available at this time. I mean the people living around Saludo Street in Lynnhaven.

They probably called the news source which must not be named which reported the story.

Maybe I can persuade one of the people most involved with the cat snatchings in Lynnhaven to come on TOTV and talk to people about what they experienced. Remember though that people have trouble talking about things when it happened to them firsthand. Post traumatic stress disorder would apply to the loss of a beloved pet.

In my experiences with Villages' new sources --unless they are going from police reports-- the facts can be hit or miss. Gary Corsair, for instance, did a story on me in The Villages Daily Sun on Memorial Day of 2007 and he got all kinds of the facts I told him wrong. The story was about my fight to get the Florida Victim Services Directory connected to Villages' area libraries. I have dealt with a lot of journalists in my 224 612 Project since 1992 or thereabouts and have not found them to be the best fact checkers. The actual people involved in the stories are the best resources not journalists looking for something to fill up their publications' pages.

Is there an animal control that could trank these animals and relocate them not only for the good of the pets but for their own good, I wouldn't think being in a suburban area would be good for them.

No, Trudy. I find no relocation program in the US. Fl fish and wildlife leaves the problem with the individual homeowner.
Coyotes thrive in urban areas. Live longer.

There are coyotes in this area of Lynnhaven as well. Some of the Saludo Street people see them around 1 AM at night. One man's pooch-- Buddy-- has a health condition where Buddy has to pee a lot. So, Buddy and Buddy's owner are often out-and-about at 1 AM.

I was watching Flipping Vegas on A&E the other night and one of the properties about to go on sale had a coyote scat problem. So the flipper guy gave his workers bottles of water to drink and then later pee around the perimeter of the back yard so the coyotes would not cross a marked territory. Buddy and his owner could be a front line of defense.