64 
James F. Bergan 
from the shoreline. The bobcat picked up the coot and quickly made its 
way into the thick vegetation that bordered the shoreline. Upon later 
inspection of the site of the interaction, all that remained were coot 
feathers and some entrails. 
Weather conditions were uncommonly harsh in the area on z\ 
January, with winds out of the northwest at 8-10 km/ hr and an air 
temperature of-5°C. The incident took place approximately 75 m from 
my location on the dam. 
This incident is unique in the literature not only because of the 
kleptoparasitism by a bobcat but also because the bobcat displaced an 
atypical competitor, a river otter, from a prey item. A report of a 
bobcat killing a young river otter is the only previously documented 
description of a direct interaction between these two mammalian carni- 
vores (Young 1958). 
Several incidents of river otter predation upon aquatic birds have 
been documented. Meyerriecks (1963) reported a river otter preying 
upon a common gallinule ( Gallinula chloropus ) in Florida. In Alaska, 
Quinlan (1983) found that river otters killed over 75% of the immature 
fork-tailed storm-petrels ( Oceanodroma furcata) and Leach’s storm- 
petrels ( O . leucorhoa) in a single colony. Cahn (1937) observed a river 
otter’s unsuccessful attempt to catch a coot in Ontario, Canada. Most 
studies of river otter food habits have found that birds make up a minor 
portion of the diet (Loranger 1981, Knudsen and Hale 1968, Stenson et 
al. 1984). 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . — Helpful comments were provided by 
John J. Mayer and Loren M. Smith. Work was funded by the Savannah 
River Ecology Laboratory (DOE Contract DE-AC09-76SROO819, Univer- 
sity of Georgia Institute of Ecology) and Texas Tech University (College 
of Agricultural Sciences Manuscript T-9-575). 
LITERATURE CITED 
Beasom, S. L., and R. A. Moore. 1977. Bobcat food habit response to a change 
in prey abundance. Southwest. Nat. 21:451-457. 
Cahn, A. R. 1937. The mammals of the Quetico Provincial Park of Ontario. 
J. Mammal. 18:19-30. 
King, A. M., R. A. Lancia, D. Miller, D. K. Woodward, and J. D. Hair. 1983. 
Winter food habits of bobcats in North Carolina. Brimleyana 9: 1 1 1-122. 
Knudsen, G. J., and J. B. Hale. 1968. Food habits of otters in the Great 
Lakes region. J. Wildl. Manage. 32:89-93. 
Loranger, A. J. 1981. Late fall and early winter foods of the river otter ( Lutra 
canadensis) in Massachusetts, 1976-1978. Pages' 599-605 in Worldwide 
Furbearer Conference Proceedings. Vol. 1. August 3-1 1, 1980, Frostburg, 
Md. (J. A. Chapman and D. Pursley, editors). 
