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Since we have Ohio bears and coyotes thread, why not an Ohio Bobcat thead... Lets see some pix...
Last winter or maybe the winter before got into a good discussion over on the main forum with one of the experienced trappers and talking about fur quality and grading of bobcats pelts... He was from one of the northern states, I think maybe Minnesota, but anyhow I guess color phase has much to do with their worth and if I remember right along with size a lot had to do with the white patterning of their under belly, I think the spots patterning in the white and the amount of white fur on the belly... I think it was the less white on them the higher the grade and the much more money they brought from the furriers...
What do these Ohio Bobcat bellies look like?
Gary, We have a lot of bobcats.
I stopped saving bobcat picture after a while. This year I had a camera that in a matter of a few weeks I had multiple pictures of coyotes, sometime several together, bobcats, and two different house cats. I don't think that the house cats lasted long. I would be more willing to trap if I did not have to worry about releasing a bobcat from a leg hold trap by myself. I spoke with ODNR about 5 years ago and they thought that we would have a bobcat trapping season within two years. The populations are high enough. A couple of years ago, they said that the politics were not right to have a season.
A few years back ODOW proposed a limited bobcat trapping season but the idea got shot down after some public uproar. That's about all I can recall off the top of my head. I'll have to try to google up some of the details.
In my home state of Connection we have so many bobcats that we call in ten bobcats to every one coyote. It’s ridiculous.
No season for Bobcats in CT either. It’s ridiculous but since liberals run our state we know it will never happen. But I can’t understand why ohio doesn’t have a season yet.
I could get into hound hunting bobcats...
Cool pix Cliff, thanks for sharing...
they have been here for over 40 years. was chased by two when I was 20. Im 63 now.
I'm 63 also and when a kid probably 50 years ago, there were rumours of them in a certain area locally, so yeah, I believe the 40 years part, but not so sure about the chasing part though...8^)
I had no idea! Cool pics Cliff!
We unfortunately have way too many and the fawn population is getting hit very hard on my property.
Three known successful litters on the farm:
2016
2021
2022
Lots of good pics - they are a beautiful creature. Caught one in early 2021 trying for coyote.
Just a couple of the better captures.
Found this thread and when I get some good ones I'll add. They are thick around us as Goyt said.
Buddy got a good one at his property this spring turkey season.
Made a framed one of this for camp.
Zbone did you take the pic? Did ODOW come and take the carcass? With bobcats being protected in Ohio, I wonder if it possible to legally possess a bobcat road kill. I don't know the law but I think a CITES tag may be needed to bring a legally killed one from another state into Ohio. But like I said I don't know for sure. Any one know the law regarding this?
CITES is international and would not be required for tagging anything inside the states. I’m not familiar with Ohio regs regarding roadkill cats, assume it’s the same as deer but not sure. Should be easy enough to find out.
Yeah Old Reb, I thought about contacting ODNR, but they used to monitor this site and figured it'd be a good way to learn if they still do, guess not no contact from them yet...
Yeah, I took the picture Sunday night, didn't dare touch it (I know better), thought about lifting a leg to determine sex but thought better of it... It wasn't real big, suspect a younger female, maybe a yearling... It's been laying there dead since at least last Wednesday the 15th when I first seen it driving to work went by it 70mph and once past, thought no can't be.... So next day slowed down and looked, and sure enough looked like a Bobcat... So Sunday back to work and was still there, so on the way home Sunday night with lighter traffic, pulled way off the side of berm jumped out and took the photo...
Now it's been there 6 days laying along I77 just a foot or so off the white line (can see it's on payment) with probably a bajillion ODNR employees driving by it in that amount of time, and still hasn't been picked up... Go figure...
If they wanta contact me for the exact location, I'll be more than will to give it...
Thanks Pat for the clarification on the CITES tag being an international thing. Yeah Z, it does appear to be a smaller cat. I don't know how long the previous year kittens stay with their mother but maybe last year's young are out on their own now looking for a place of their own. Momma is probably getting ready to birth her next litter. Hopefully ODOW will soon realize that it is time for a bobcat season, even if it is a limited one. Road kills are usually a sign of an increasing population. Increased trail cam pics also show that the bobcat population is growing.
I was just surprised one was that close to my place... Not only have to worry about coyotes eating my dog, now have to worry about Bobcats too...8^)
Is there any talk about opening up bobcats to hunting and trapping? I see them regularly on my ground in Carroll. This pic was from late January, 2023.
It's probably dead Pat, killed on I77...8^)))
Pat - there has been a push for trapping, but so far nothing has went through (see link). Just a matter of time if you ask me. I expect that in the next few years there will be a season on them - especially with the dwindling turkey and small game animals.
Speaking of the dwindling turkey population - got these picks just today!
Pat.....I guess those are "cool" pictures.....also, not that cool :-(
I will be scouting for some turkeys this weekend - which may end up more of a walk in the woods.
I found a young, adult buck with his throat ripped open. Looked like a bobcat got him. It seems so unlikely that a bobcat could kill an adult buck. However, this guy looks to be pretty big.
How much of the deer was consumed?
Old Reb, Very little. Part of the neck , a check and maybe part of the tongue. I was driving down a lane in street clothes and shoes when I decided to quickly walk a trail into a bedding area to look for a potential stand location. I found the dead buck and did not want to move it and get dirty so I did not turn it over. It was after the close of season and the only wound I could see that may have caused it's death was on the neck. It was fresh.
I remember (not too long ago) in the Ohio hunting regs the ODOW requested hunters report Bobcat sightings. I would call and mail them pictures of the many sightings on my property. Never heard anything back from them....Guess they wern't that interested after all....
I found two more recent kills on Saturday, April 29. The first one looks to have been eaten by a bobcat as the hide is pretty much intact and the bones are not scared like coyotes would do.
The second is extremely fresh. As you can see in the picture, the top half has been eaten very delicately. I came back and put up a camera. Hopefully I did not disturb the area so much that whatever was feeding on it will abandon the kill.
This makes 5 kills that I have found since 2/6 that look to me that they were made by bobcats. I doubt that I have found even half of them. I am anxious to see what I capture on camera on the fresh kill.
I hope you get some good pics. Did you notice any tracks at the fresh kill. I wonder if bobcats will scavenge another preditor's kill?
I'd put a trail cam on the fresh kill....
I checked my camera and realized that it was naive of me to think that what killed the deer was what was going to eat most of it. Most of the feeding on the second half of the deer was done in daylight by vultures and redtail hawks. The hawks ate whenever they wanted and the vultures whenever the hawks let them. At night raccoons fed on it but not as frequently as the vultures and hawks. On night 4 of 6 days a coyote showed up, but I had no pictures of it actually feeding. I was surprised at how many deer came by.
Goyt, maybe the deer were paying their last respects. Lol. Hey, I would have put up a cam too in hopes of getting a bobcat photo.
Old Reb, My hope was that I could get a feel for what was killing all of the deer that I find dead. I find kill sites where the bones are scattered and some where they are not. I was thinking that where the bones are scattered it was a coyote kill and where they were not it might be a bobcat. I get almost equal pictures of bobcats and coyotes. Lately most of the bones have not been scattered. I think that the camera showed that what killed the kill the deer did not eat on it after I disturbed the site. I am also starting to think that what kills a deer may not be eating a lot of it. Hawks, vultures and raccoons are eating a fair amount of it and picking the bones cleans instead of chewing on the bones.
I find 5 to 10 kill sites a year. I go in the woods the most in February to mid May. I do find some in farm fields at other times. Assuming that I am not finding all of them and the deer are being killed by predators all year long, I may be losing 25+ deer a year to coyotes and bobcats or something else. That is about one deer per 20 acres! The number of dead deer I am finding seems to have gone up significantly in the last couple of years. I would love to figure out a way to determine what has killed each dead deer I find.
We killed about 1 doe for every 50 acres this last season. There are still plenty of deer because there is an outfitter in the area that controls several thousand acres and kills very few does. The predation is not a real problem at this time. I have to wonder how many new born fawns are killed each spring. I doubt that I would find any signs of them next winter.
I guess it is something we'll have to live with since preditor numbers are on the rise in Ohio. I believe that there will be a bobcat season in the near future. Some of the kills you find may possibly be unrecovered deer from hunting season that made it to your property before expiring. I found one last month on a property that I have permission to hunt. The bones had been scattered but I found evidence that it was an unrecovered hunter shot deer.
It is hard to determine how a deer died. If I find a pile of white bones and some hide, I look for an arrow, bullet holes or broken bones but most of the time it remains a mystery. The ones that get my attention are the ones that have died while the season is closed. If they are not near a road the majority were probably killed by predators. Right now I welcome the help controlling the deer herd. I will trap the land if necessary but I would like there to be a bobcat season.
im 62 years old. Had my first experience being chased by two bobcats when I was 19 in ohio. Theyve been here a while
An article in the latest issue of Ohio Outdoor News states that Ohio could support a limited bobcat trapping season based on a 3 year study at Ohio University. The Ohio Wildlife Council hasn't taken up debite on this issue yet. Any approved trapping season wouldn't likely take place until 2024.
I hope it’s not limited to trapping. I’m calling a lot of bobcats in and also getting them on baits when hunting thermals.
A LeatherWaller started a thread on Ohio Bobcats, one guy thought they were released in Ohio... I keyed in a post and thought I'd share it here:
I was born in 1959 and as a kid growing up in Tuscarawas and Harrison Counties during the 60's there were reports of a couple on a local farm and my grandfather who farmed talked about neighboring farmers seeing and hearing them before I was born... He called them wildcats as he also called skunks polecats...8^)))
Then as a teen owned and ran coonhounds and one of my coonhunting buddies treed one in the mid-70's...Through the years you'd hear about somebody seeing one now and again, and then probably around the late 90's another friend treed one with his dogs and took a picture of it... It wasn't until trailcams came out and became popular did some get caught on film, so they've always been here at least in my area... As said the roadkilled one I photographed this spring was hit just down the road and the past couple summers a black bear has been running the hills around my house... Bobcats, bears, coyotes, foxes, skunks, opossums, mink, weasels, birds of prey, and an OVERpopulation of raccoons, no wonder I haven't seen a wild turkey around my house in the woods in probably about 5 or 6 years...8^((("
random ask- do you guys see them come and go in presense (like some years there are lots and then others not so much)?
random ask- do you guys see them come and go in presense (like some years there are lots and then others not so much)?
random ask- do you guys see them come and go in presense (like some years there are lots and then others not so much)?
gjs4 - Where we are in Coshocton they are there year round. They have large overlapping hunting range so we see them fairly regularly throughout the year. I saw one get a gray squirrel from below a feeder last year that was very cool.
