Category Archives: bobcat

Bobcat Trapping Curtailed Around Joshua Tree

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NYS bobcatIt all began, says the High Country News Goat blog, when a California man found a bobcat trap on his property next to Joshua Tree National Monument. He had not given the trapper permission, so he sought relief from the local police. The police told the man that not only had the trapper not done anything illegal, but he had better give the trap back, or he would be the one doing something illegal, the blog says.

On January 1 a new law in California prohibited the trapping of bobcats in the area adjacent to Joshua Tree went into effect. Bobcat trapping in the area had recently doubled because of demand for bobcat furs in Asia, the blog says.

January 1 also saw the enactment of a new law limiting when and where nuisance mountain lions in the state can be killed.

Read the High Country News Goat blog detailing the new bobcat law, here.
Read a round-up of new California laws, including the bobcat and mountain lion laws, from KQED here.
And read a short item on the mountain lion law in Field & Stream, here.

Photo: Bobcat in New York State, courtesy of NYS Department of Environmental Conservation

Bobcat Trapping Curtailed Around Joshua Tree

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NYS bobcatIt all began, says the High Country News Goat blog, when a California man found a bobcat trap on his property next to Joshua Tree National Monument. He had not given the trapper permission, so he sought relief from the local police. The police told the man that not only had the trapper not done anything illegal, but he had better give the trap back, or he would be the one doing something illegal, the blog says.

On January 1 a new law in California prohibited the trapping of bobcats in the area adjacent to Joshua Tree went into effect. Bobcat trapping in the area had recently doubled because of demand for bobcat furs in Asia, the blog says.

January 1 also saw the enactment of a new law limiting when and where nuisance mountain lions in the state can be killed.

Read the High Country News Goat blog detailing the new bobcat law, here.
Read a round-up of new California laws, including the bobcat and mountain lion laws, from KQED here.
And read a short item on the mountain lion law in Field & Stream, here.

Photo: Bobcat in New York State, courtesy of NYS Department of Environmental Conservation

August Research Round-up

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NYS bobcat– Ohio Department of Natural Resources is studying how and why bobcats have returned to the state, by tracking 21 collared bobcats, The Madison Press reports. Previous research showed that there are two distinct populations of bobcats in the state. DNA analysis showed that the bobcats in both populations are from Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky. Read more in The Madison Press, here.

– David “Doc Quack” Riensche, an East Bay Regional Park District biologist, has been studying western pond turtles in in the eastern foothills of Mount Diablo outside Clayton, California for three years, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The study has collected information on where the turtles winter and lay eggs. Western pond turtles are the only turtle native to California, but they face competition from non-native turtle species. Read more in the San Francisco Chronicle, here.

– Nearly 100 research volunteers surveyed the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma for bats for this year’s “Bat Blitz,” organized by the Southeastern Bat Diversity Network, the Catoosa Times reports. One of the goals of the blitz is to document bat diversity before white nose syndrome harms bat populations in Oklahoma. Read more in the Catoosa Times.

Photo: This bobcat was in New York State. Photo courtesy NYS DEC

Lynx and Bobcat in Northeast

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There are lynx sightings in Vermont and a new bobcat management plan in New York.

In New York, the bobcat management plan offers a road map for managing the species over the next five years. Bobcat numbers in the state are up, the report says:

All indications, including harvest trends, suggest that bobcats have increased in abundance here and in surrounding states, and observations have become more common in recent years. Based on analysis of harvest data, we estimate New York’s bobcat population to be approximately 5,000 animals in areas where regulated hunting and trapping seasons have been in place since the 1970s. Estimates are not available for populations expanding into western and central New York.

Because of this, the plan includes opening some new areas of the state to bobcat hunting and changing the bobcat hunting season in other areas for the sake of consistency. The report also mentions investigating the possibility of reestablishing bobcats on Long Island, in the urban southeast corner of the state.

Find a link to the management plan and a short description of it on the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation’s website, on the bobcat page, here.

In Vermont, it’s the rural northwest corner of the state that is seeing an increase of lynx sightings, according to the blog of the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Northeast Ecological Services.

A total of eight lynx track intercepts were recorded during two survey efforts in February and March. The track patterns and genetic analysis indicated three to five distinct individuals, some of which were traveling together.

The animals traveling together were likely a mother and her young, the blog says, which suggests a breeding population in the area.

Read the entire blog post, here.

Photo: Lynx track, courtesy Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department