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Exterminator discovers incredible find in local chimney - baby bobcats

Posted 6/1/17

It’s not unusual for Josh Burton, general manager of Cummings Termite & Pest Control, to deal with pesky insects and desert critters.

But an initial call from a customer off Kingstree …

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Exterminator discovers incredible find in local chimney - baby bobcats

Posted

It’s not unusual for Josh Burton, general manager of Cummings Termite & Pest Control, to deal with pesky insects and desert critters.

But an initial call from a customer off Kingstree Boulevard, asking him to retrieve a bird stuck in a chimney, turned out to be something he had never before encountered.

“Not an uncommon call,” said Burton, who has responded to requests to remove snakes, bats and birds. “We don’t normally get into that stuff, but we don’t back away from anything.

“It’s one of those things that, if we have the time, we will try to accommodate because we are in the pest control business. It doesn’t mean we are only about exterminating anything we find.”

Still, when Burton is called to handle a situation involving birds, that’s what he expects to find on the scene.

“When you get called like this, you’re acting as an investigator,” Burton continued.

“You realize the problem that you’re faced with but you also want to protect yourself and the customers. The last thing you want to do is expose a bird into a house and then you’re stuck trying to get the bird out which is very tough.”

When Burton arrived May 10 at the home, he suspected he was dealing with a hawk, a situation that he previously had not handled. The customer reproted hearing the sounds for about two days.

“I opened the fireplace access panel cautiously and saw two kittens,” Burton explained. “I asked the customer ‘Do you have a cat?’”

The customer replied in the negative.

“I told him ‘well, we have two kittens.’”

On second glance, Burton saw sharp tips on the animals’ ears and spotted fur, and changed his diagnosis:

“You have two bobcat kittens in your fireplace.”

The kittens were estimated to be about one month old. Burton called the company owner, Nathan Watters, and together they found a structural default cavity om the roof. They theorized that the mother bobcat hid the kittens away from any predators.

“They found their way through a little hole and once they got in, they pin-g-ponged their way down.”

He estimated they dropped about 20 feet.

Burton contacted Amy Burnett of Arizona Fish and Game Department for advice.

“I was instructed to put the pups in a cardboard box and leave them outside the residence on the back patio in a shaded area. Not to play with them, not to take photos, feed or water them. We were hoping that Momma Bobcat had gotten disconnected with them and she would hear them crying and would come back for them.”

After six hours, the mother had not returned. The decision was made to surrender them to Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center in Scottsdale, where they were introduced to a foster mother before scheduled release in September.

“It was an adventure for all of us,” recalled Burton.