Bob the I-5 Llama spends his days watching traffic go by his pasture, just west of the freeway, south of Gold Hill.

When a traffic-watching llama named Bob launched his own Facebook page in August, he was grateful enough for the 40 or so followers he attracted in a two-month span.

When his death was reported last week by the Jackson County Scanner Group on Facebook — boasting over 96,000 members — his fan page surged to more than 2,200 followers in less than three days.

Turns out, a big chunk of the population of a two-county area had their own tales about the dreadlocked critter, having built llama-watching into their daily routine, some even designating their own names for the wayward llama in the cow pasture just west of Interstate 5 and south of Gold Hill.

Laurel Hill Golf Course owner Russell Granger, who inherited Bob 13 years ago when he took over his family’s golf course, heard about the passing of his beloved Bob on social media just like everyone else.

Nearly as soon as Grants Pass resident Rio Gilinsky posted about her heartbreak at discovering “her” beloved llama — which she’d kept tabs on for at least 10 years — dead in the field, scanner group members were reporting that he was back up — alive and well — watching the world pass by. 

Granger said Gilinsky’s death report was far from Bob’s first.

Abandoned more than 20 years ago in the fields between Granger’s 340 acres and a neighboring ranch, owned by the Estremado family, Bob has long been a popular sight along I-5. He’s known for lying in patches of sunshine, watching the cars go by, snacking on whatever grain is given to his cohabitating cows and chasing off coyotes. He’s also pretty adept, Granger noted, at generating calls — of both fandom and concern — to the golf course clubhouse.

Named after Bob Marley for his distinctive dreadlocks and his Zen-like approach to life, Bob’s untimely demise last week — or lack thereof — has prompted previously unknown celebrity. Gilinsky said she was nearly as mortified by the attention her scanner group post generated as she was for thinking he had passed “the rainbow bridge for llamas.”

“My family always looks for him. My daughter will say, ‘Where’s our llama?’ When he wasn’t there for a few days, and then I saw him lying on his side, I was heartbroken … but he was totally playing dead!” Gilinsky said.

“There was a van pulled over, so I was like, ‘Oh NO. Somebody’s reporting his body. I had been thinking about this poor llama for a week, since I saw his little body out in the field, so I made kind of a tribute post.”

Gilinsky said responses to the “fake llama death” were instant and varied.

“All the comments started. People were saying, “Oh no, Rest in Peace, poor Bob!” But then some people were like, ‘I just saw Bob yesterday! Are you sure?!’”

When Gilinsky discovered Bob’s fan page, “Bob the I-5 Llama,” she promptly joined and, willing to own up to her mistake, Gilinsky posted an apology to the page.

“I was like, I’m so sorry, I just held a Facebook funeral for your llama, but I’m so glad I was wrong,” Gilinsky told the Rogue Valley Times.

Granger, whose family has run the golf course for generations, said neither his family nor Bob were fazed by Gilinsky’s report of the llama’s passing.

“He does sleep on his side and if you’re not used to seeing it you might think he’s dead. He usually likes to be right along the fence, where the big blackberry bushes are, so people can’t sometimes see him, which gets everyone a little worried,” Granger said.

“When the post showed up on the scanner group and said he was dead, somebody tagged me. I was just like, ‘Oh yeah, here we go.’ … Sure enough, people responded right away. ‘He’s up! He’s OK. He’s standing back up!’”

Visiting Bob in the field with dozens of cows one afternoon last week, Granger said he gives the llama a wide berth. He’s never been able to handle the llama, so Granger said he gets a laugh out of advice on how to groom or enforce shelter on the mostly wild bachelor.

On a bright note, Granger said the sudden promotion of Bob’s fan page has yielded a slew of stories, at least one heavy metal llama song and some poems. Names previously bestowed on Bob include Lloyd, Larry, Floyd, Fernando, Angry Aaron and even Casey.

Additional demands include requests for Bob the I-5 llama merchandise, a handful of opportunists trying to profit off Bob’s celebrity and some nearby townsfolk calling on Bob to consider either becoming Gold Hill’s next mayor or even making a presidential run.

Medford resident Kassidy Orlow, a first-grade teacher at Jewett Elementary, counts herself a longtime llama fan. An uptick of fan page posts last week found Orlow assigning her students to create a children’s book about the I-5 celebrity.

“I actually saw the scanner page where it said that he died. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that poor llama!’ Then I saw the owner post on the page that he was OK. I’ve been laughing about it all week and totally invested in this Bob story,” Orlow said.

“I was like, ‘I have to tell my students about this! I showed them all the pictures of him and the names people were guessing. … The kids really got into it, so we decided to write a book about the I-5 llama,” Orlow said.

“I’ve been trying to find ways to help my kids want to write more and this really got their creative minds working. All of them had so many ideas of what Bob secretly does … how he spends his time.”

Granger said he enjoys sharing Bob with the community and hopes the page will temper some of the concerns that tend to trickle in.

“We’ve just kind of been enjoying it since it sort of blew up. I think the big thing is it’s been pretty cool seeing everyone’s enjoyment of seeing him out there,” Granger said.

“He looks like a gentle soul … everyone just really loves him. I guess he’s kind of been everybody’s llama all these years.”