As a longtime hiker, I've tramped many miles in the Cascades forests, thrilled every time another species of Pacific Northwest wildlife revealed itself. Bears, a cougar, ptarmigans, eagles, osprey, deer and elk, marmots that ate all our coffee bags on Glacier Peak, mice, skunk and porcupine.

But only a fleeting glimpse of a bobcat, in a branch over the trail, too far ahead to really count as much of a sighting.

Now I find out that all I had to do was go to prison. Officials at Monroe Corrections Complex reported that on Monday night a bobcat skittered through the razor wire fence, climbed onto the roof of one of the buildings and hid until a veterinarian came and tranquilized it. The animal will be returned to the wild.

Which still seems to be the better place for trying to catch sight of a bobcat.