This stuffed Bobcat is part of the teaching collections at the Memphis Pink Palace Museum. It had a starring role in one of the best jokes ever played on me. I was working as a science educator at the Pink Palace at the time. Every spring, we would conduct night safaris to a local wetlands, taking vans full of people to see owls, beaver, bats, and many other creatures of the night.

At the time of this joke, I was having a very lucky streak at finding wildlife. Pulling up next to a mass of honeysuckle vines, I reached in and pulled out a Cardinal that was roosting there. Another night, I noticed splashes in the water and ran out to capture a very large carp that was trapped in a pool at the water's edge. It seemed that every night I would manage to capture a snake, turtle, or something else for the people to look at. Of course, all of them were returned unharmed once we looked at them.

On the "night of the bobcat", we started as usual by stopping in an open area to look at the stars and listen to frogs. While I was talking about frog calls, I did not notice that my cohort, John Craven, had slipped away. He was back before I notice.

When we continued on, John suddenly yelled "Stop!" He pointed off into the field, and there was a bobcat, standing at the edge of the woods. This was only the third bobcat we had seen there, in quite a few years of night safaris, so I was very excited. While I was telling everyone to be very still and quiet, so they would not scare it, John jumped out and said, "I'm gonna catch it!" I was horrified! He made it quite a way across the field before I realized that it was the stuffed bobcat from the Mammals classroom. Luckily, John took the van keys with him, so he did not have to walk back to the museum.