Reader Dolly Kelly Pinto sent in a photograph of a real Brookfield bobcat roaming through her backyard, so Patch thought, how unusual is it to see a bobcat off of the playing field?

A Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) study from 2008 recorded 186 bobcat sightings in Connecticut over 12 months, among the highest in 20 years of record keeping, and that they were seen "most frequently in towns west of the Connecticut River."

Bobcats are "fairly common" in the Brookfield area, according to Regional Animal Control Officer Audrey McKay, who gets calls about bobcats and similar wild animals "maybe once a month."

"It's sort of a neat thing if you can see one," McKay said, as they're secretive, stealthy animals that are "pretty much afraid of humans."

While bobcats aren't likely to bother humans, according to Michael Dattner, co-owner and veterinarian at the Brookfield Animal Hospital, they could be a nuisance to cats and small dogs.

Dattner has only seen two himself in the 11 years since he moved to Brookfield, though "each year it seems like someone's commented that they've seen one."

The bobcat has been on the DEP's protected species list since the 1970s, when pelt prices rose and officials became worried about them being overhunted. The population is healthy now, but since "bobcats rarely cause conflicts with human activities... Problems caused by bobcats are too infrequent to justify efforts to reduce populations," according to the DEP.

The average bobcat is about twice the size of a housecat and they inhabit areas from Central Mexico to Canada.