Biologists Monitoring 3-Legged Bobcat in Santa Monicas

The National Park Service is monitoring a bobcat in the Santa Monica Mountains that has three legs and whose kitten is missing an ear, it was reported Friday.

In a new video taken by the Park Service, the bobcat was filmed as she gracefully bounded through the brush on three legs. The three-legged bobcat, which has been given the designation B-337, is the latest to be tracked by biologists in the Santa Monicas, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Park spokesman Zach Behrens told the newspaper that B-337 is the first three-legged bobcat caught by National Park Service biologists in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. She was collared and will be tracked and studied along with 336 other bobcats in the area.

It is unclear whether the cat’s missing leg was a birth defect or the result of an injury, but biologists say it doesn’t appear to be slowing her down.

“Bobcats catch live prey, so that means she’s managing to hunt with one front leg -- and doing it well enough to feed herself and her kitten,” biologist Joanne Moriarty said in a statement.

The kitten isn’t missing a leg, but it is missing one of his ears. Biologists don’t know why but plan to analyze the cats’ DNA.

--City News Service, photos courtesy of the National Park Service