A lynx got a schooling for heading into a chicken coop by a British Columbia farmer who grabbed the invader and then proceeded to give him a lecture.
Chris Paulson went to check out his chicken coop Sunday after hearing a commotion. He thought at first that maybe one of them had laid an egg on the family’s farm on Burns Lake in northern B.C.
Chickens tend to announce a new arrival, but Paulson said he knew something was different because the birds were all flying around.
Paulson stuck his head in the coop and that’s when he saw a Canada lynx, unmistakable with its black, tufted ear tips, massive paws, and thick grey fur.
The lynx went to the henhouse for a fast meal and had already killed two of them and was going for more.
So Paulson grabbed the lynx and tried to shoo him out. The lynx wasn’t aggressive towards the experienced wildlife wrangler. It only wanted to catch more chickens before they …umm, flew the coop.
The lynx wound up backed into a corner, refusing to leave, so without thinking much about it, Paulson grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and hauled it out and away from the coop.
“Just like a mother cat would,” Paulson said.
But then he did something that has the internet abuzz.
He took out his cellphone, turned the lens on both himself and the lynx in his hand, and started recording.
Seeing an opportunity for a teachable moment he took the lynx back to the coop.
On the video, which Paulson says he began recording on his phone to show his two daughters, and later posted to Facebook, he gently scolds the scowling, growling animal — the telltale feathers still protruding from its mouth.
“Let’s go see the damage you did, buddy,” Paulson schools the lynx.
“ Not good, is it? No.”
The camera angle pans to the remnants of the unfortunate bird, it’s coop-mates flapping and squawking at the reappearance of the big cat.
Good little bad Cat!! And here I thought smoke was bad!
Posted by Chris Paulson on Sunday, February 21, 2021
“See how upset you made everyone? That’s two of our new chickens.”
The limp and dangling creature doesn’t defend itself.
At that point Paulson realized he needed to get the animal to an area he could release it safely. So he placed it in a dog kennel and drove it off his property and set it free, a mistake he regrets.
“In hindsight, what we did was wrong,” Paulson said. “We shouldn’t have relocated him.”
In fact, Paulson shouldn’t have interacted with the animal in the way he did at all, according to Sgt. Ron LeBlanc of the B.C. Conservation Officer Service, whose office investigated the incident.
“It’s not something we’d advise the public to do, for a couple reasons,” he said in a phone interview with CTV News. “One, you could get yourself hurt pretty bad. And second, it’s also illegal.”
While the Canadian lynx is not known to attack humans — in fact, it would rather avoid us completely — it has very sharp teeth and claws, and formidable survival skills.
Paulson’s family has owned his property for about 100 years. He’s used to wildlife using his backyard as a freeway without incident, relying on his German shepherd dog to warn animals away. But the dog was on a walk with his daughters Sunday, otherwise he believes the lynx would not have approached his outbuildings at all.
Paulson’s lecture has made him legendary on social media.
Your are one bass ass to grab that cat like that.
off brother you just hit legend status, wrote one commentator.
Yikes!! You are brave!
, wrote another
