It's not just a rumor now. There really has been a bobcat in Cathlamet. On Monday, students at Wahkiakum High School were introduced to one, a family pet. Ziva was pretty patient with the kids who stopped by the greenhouse on school grounds to see and pet her, becoming only mildly cross with the attention now and again. She belongs to Holly Cox, a vet tech in Longview, and is best friends with a dog named Diesel, and a boy named Gage. She eats raw meat and is pretty much an indoor cat. Gage, in the foreground, is mourning the loss of his Elf on the Shelf, but that's life with a big cat who likes to climb. They have fun playing together, and the family enjoys watching Ziva's stealthy moves. According to Cox, owning a bobcat is not as unusual as one might think. She got Ziva, who is four generations from the wild, from a breeder in Montana.

Photo by Diana Zimmerman.