Bobcats are blessed with special eyes. And there’s a good reason for that.
The secretive animals, which frequent the woods of Maine, are often nocturnal. They do lots of hunting at dawn and dusk, when their prey tend to be more active.
A bobcat’s eyes are specially designed for this kind of lighting as they have more rods and cones that enhance their ability to see in the dark. Not only that, but the elliptical shape of their eyes give them bigger corneas that let more light into the eye at night.
However, just like humans, some bobcats and other animals experience partial loss of their sight. That appears to be the case with the bobcat shown in these photos.
Laura Zamfirescu of Laura Zamfirescu Photography captured these gorgeous images of a Maine bobcat with a cloudy right eye that almost certainly does not allow it to see on that side.
The contrast with its normal looking left eye, which is yellowish, is obvious.
Rather than using a trail camera, Zamfirescu employed a more sophisticated setup with a 35mm camera that allows her to take more rich and detailed shots.
“These are taken in Waldo County with a camera trap (not a trail camera), which is a Canon camera in a weatherproof box with two flashes and a motion sensor,” Zamfirescu explained.
Clearly, this bobcat is more than holding its own in spite of its vision issues. It otherwise appears healthy as we approach the end of winter.
Our thanks to Laura Zamfirescu for sharing these beautiful photos!