Cerang

Cerang Bobcat

Male Bobcat

Born 1988 - Died 1998

Rescue 7/28/1993

The Florida Wildlife Commission called me and said two bobcats had been abandoned by their owners with they divorced. They were found in a concrete floored, chain link pen and had dug so desperately at the concrete to escape when they began starving that their paws were just bloody nubs. We rescued the two of them and were told their names had been Cerang and Shanda.

Shanda figured out she was in a good place right away, but I personally cleaned Cerang’s cage every day for three years because he was so afraid of humans. It was three years into our relationship before he tentatively walked to the wall I was cleaning and leaned against the fence as if to say, “I trust you now.” I sat there in the dirt and cried for a long time. He extended his trust to others then as well, but to this day, he’s taken longer than any other cat to get over the abuse he once faced.

The only other memory I’ve recorded of him was from 5/25/1997, after he had been neutered. I hadn’t told Don Lewis that I’d neutered him, so Don was trying to breed him to Elsa Bobcat. Here is that diary entry:

I had caught up a Bobcat (Elsa) and put her in a cage attached to a 1200 sq. ft pen, where Cerang just moved, in the hopes of acquainting the two before putting her in his pen.  I told Don I wanted to make sure they were going to get along before opening the door.

Behind my back he sneaked out there and let her out, but did not fasten the gate and she escaped.  He did not tell me that she got away, so I don’t know if he saw it or if she got out after he walked away.  The next day a tour group saw her out and told me.  When I asked Don how her door could have been opened and left standing open he said that he had done it.

When we couldn’t find Elsa anywhere on property, we began expanding our search outside our gates.  Jamie went down N. Meadowview Circle and a neighbor said they thought they had seen her, so Dad, Jon, Kenny and I took nets and a big carrier.  We found her in the backyard of a house on N. Meadowview, so we set the carrier up in the narrowest spot where the shrubbery came around the side of the house to the front.  

Some chased her from the back yard into the narrow space where she ran into the familiar carrier to escape them and Dad and I were able to slam the door shut behind her.  - Carole Lewis at the time Carole Baskin as of this writing 1/24/2025.

More Memorials at https://bigcatrescue.org/memorials