It's Been Quite A Week, So Please Enjoy These Adorable, Angry Bobcat Kittens

If your brain has been crammed with all the Mueller report it can handle and the president's latest tweetstorm isn't doing it for you, here's something to grab your attention: four cute, cranky, little bobcat kittens recently documented in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Biologists with the National Park Service tracked a female bobcat, B-362, to the backyard of a home in Westlake Village. Researchers visited her den once she'd left the area to hunt, where they found the young bobcats -- three females and one male.

They were aptly named B-364, B-365, B-366 and B-367 (but if you think up better names, please tell us in the comments). Each was given a health check-up, weighed, measured, ear-tagged and took the NPS equivalent of a mug shot -- and seemed super excited about the whole process.

(Courtesy National Park Service)

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(Courtesy National Park Service)

(Courtesy National Park Service)

(Courtesy National Park Service)

(Courtesy National Park Service)

(Courtesy National Park Service)

(Courtesy National Park Service)

(Courtesy National Park Service)

The mother was tagged in the Thousand Oaks area in November -- just a day before the Woolsey Fire started, which went on to burn nearly 90% of land in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (SMMNRA).

NPS researchers have been studying how the affected wildlife are adapting after the devastating fire, which left much of the wildland a barren "moonscape," at least before our very rainy winter.

"This cat first had to deal with her habitat getting completely burned in the fire and then finding a new home in an unburned area," said NPS biologist Joanne Moriarty in a statement. "She chose a den in thick brush, where she could keep her kittens safe."

(Courtesy National Park Service)

(Courtesy National Park Service)

NPS officials said bobcat kittens typically stay in the den they're born in for four to five weeks. After that, their mother moves her young to other dens for shorter periods.

"Researchers are not sure why they do this, but they speculate that it's likely an anti-predator behavior," NPS spokeswoman Ana Cholo said in a statement. "Mom will typically also keep them in dens until they are 12 weeks of age, and then at that point they will follow her as she hunts and goes about her day."

Moriarty added that while it's been a stressful time for local wildlife "we're happy to see her thriving despite the challenges."