Published 2011-02-15T19:08:00Z”/>
Andrea Robertson
Willie the Wildcat is now celebrating his 87th anniversary as our principle image and the university just isn’t doing enough to show gratitude.
Until 1924, our students were known as “The Educators,” since Chico State was initially started up as a teacher’s specialization university.
According to the fable, and the Chico Sate website, the wildcat earned his place as our mascot when students first identified with its “sassy, spitfire vigor and vitality.” Students took it to the next level by caging and bringing a lynx kitten to sporting events in order to inspire the athletes of the time. From then on we’ve been known as the Wildcats in heart and jersey.
Although Willie is recognized as a wildcat, his true species is better distinguished as the bobcat or lynx. These creatures tower over any housecat and can take out most dogs that cross their paths. Adult males weigh between 15 and 30 pounds, according to It’sNature.org.
Their agility makes it easy for them to catch smaller prey such as hares, yet they have been witnessed bringing down animals as big as deer and livestock, not to mention attacking a few humans along the way.
The bobcat is magnificently “solitary, restless and wide-ranging,” as described by DesertUSA, just as we Chico State students are independent in our studies, vigorous in competition and adaptable to anything that is thrown our way. The wildcat captures our essential
school spirit.
To our dismay, Willie and his fellow wildcats are seeing a decline in their population. Although they are the greatest number of native cats left, according to It’sNature.org, they are still hunted for their luxurious coats or by farmers protecting their property. Laws have been put into place to protect the animal, but the Iberian Lynx has been almost completely wiped out, showing that this could occur to our bobcat as well.
Furthermore, some state representatives wish to take the bobcat off the protection list, leaving the animals up for game come hunting season. The season begins Nov. 15 and carries on until the last day of February.
Perhaps we should do something to help the animal which carries on our school name and spirit. The wildcat is featured all across campus. If we can use the wildcat for its image, I would think that their well-being should be a key concern to the student body. It would be bad to have to change mascots again – this time with negligence to blame. From what I have learned after speaking to a Chico sustainability group and representatives from the College of Natural Sciences, Chico State is not involved in any specific aid to them.
Whether it’s money, time or effort that we send, anything would be a help, becasue while we know all of this about the wildcat’s history, we don’t want to miss out on its future.
Andrea Robertson can be reached at
