by M. Kathy Raines
Rounding a bend at Sabal Palms Wildlife Sanctuary about noon, I startled to see a sizeable spotted cat with a large cub walking the trail five yards ahead. While the youth retreated into brush, the mother froze horizontally across the path. Then, swiveling her head, she stared at me, the intensity of her gaze prompting ridiculous thoughts. Do young mountain lions have spots? Did a jaguar trek up from southern Tamaulipas and swim the Rio Grande?
I thought bobcats were smaller and, given their names, shorter-tailed. A quick check on iNaturalist—a network of informed nature enthusiasts—confirmed the bobcats’ identity. I was most fortunate. As abundant as bobcats are throughout the U.S., people rarely see them.
A bobcat (Lynx rufus) is roughly twice the size of an average housecat or medium-sized dog. Its blotchy gray-to-rust fur is soft, thick and short, and its black-striped tail, a mere six inches long, appears to be bobbed, inspiring its name. A fur ruff adorns its cheeks, and its black ear tufts apparently serve to sharpen its hearing. The cat’s underside and fur around its mouth are white. A bobcat’s jaw is deeper than that of a cat, allowing it to open its mouth wider. It has large paws and long legs suitable for springing.
Unlike the Valley’s rare ocelot and jaguarundi, the hearty, adaptable bobcat thrives in quite diverse habitats—chaparral, forests, swamps, deserts and even suburbs—from southern Canada to central Mexico. Mitch Sternberg, Zone Biologist for the South Texas Gulf Coast for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said that bobcats, unlike ocelots, tolerate some habitat fragmentation, or the breakup up of natural areas by roads, businesses and neighborhoods.
Though bobcats garner scant attention compared to their endangered fellows, these cats benefit from their protections, most notably the thirteen widely-used wildlife tunnels built under Highway 100 and FM 106 in Cameron County, as shown in this video created by UTRGV of wildlife traveling through one of these passageways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOzS7-yn2Y8).
A male bobcat’s range—determined by abundance of prey and the presence of other bobcats—is about three square miles, about double that of a female, who, since she nurtures kittens, wanders less extensively. Bobcats create boundaries, alerting their fellows to the cats’ status and reproductive readiness, with scrapes— shallow scratched-out ditches with a pile of detritus—into which they deposit urine, feces and scent from glands on their feet. Bobcats, unwilling to risk injury, avoid fights.
Video footage reveals that bobcats groom themselves and play just like domestic cats, throwing a mouse up and catching it, for example. They purr, snarl, hiss and yowl. Mothers call kittens with a deep, harsh meow, and kittens answer with a strident mew. Bobcats, which are adept climbers, make dens in thickets, crevices and piles of rocks.
A bobcat, usually a nocturnal hunter, may wait at burrow entrances or creep close and charge small prey, including rabbits, rodents, birds, fish, frogs and lizards. Also, it may employ a “hunting bed”, a patch of ground upon which it rotates as it searches. Able to pounce ten feet, it can also kill a deer, jumping on its back and biting the base of its skull. Biologists suspect, however, that most deer meat found in bobcat stomachs comes from the raided caches of mountain lions. Bobcats also cache large carcasses, blanketing them with dirt.
Bobcats generally mate from December to July, bearing two to three kittens after a two-month gestation. Cats may bear two litters in warm climates. At from 9 to 24 months, young disperse into their own territories, with males shooed away earlier than females.
Researchers at Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge near McAllen conducted a bobcat study in 2013—using a combination of trapping and video evidence—finding that from 16 to 22 bobcats used Santa Ana as part of their territory or as a passageway.
An estimated twenty individuals live in or pass through Resaca de la Palma State Park, with about six frequenting Sabal Palms. Visitors also see bobcats in Harlingen’s Ramsey Park, an urban refuge bordering the Arroyo Colorado, and at Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park.
Boyd Blihovde, manager at Laguna Atascosa Wildlife Refuge, said bobcats are “not as shy” as ocelots and appear more adapted to people. Rather than running, he said, a bobcat may stop and stare. Researchers there trap and collar bobcats as well as ocelots to analyze their use of tunnels.
Bobcats occasionally appear in Brownsville, as well as other Texas cities. However, reluctant to swim, they do not seem to inhabit South Padre Island.
Robert Duppong, Supervisor for Animal Control in Brownsville, once handled a call from a man on Paredes Line Road worried about a bobcat in his tree eyeing his chickens below. In 2016, a man in Emerald Valley subdivision in Brownsville spotted a bobcat lying atop his two-story house, staring down at his dog. Collette Adams, Deputy Director at the Gladys Porter Zoo, whose personnel was called, said, “That poor bobcat was surrounded by Emerald Valley residents and firetrucks. It was a huge scene.” While this feline climbed up the roof, Adams said, it—in true cat fashion— appeared baffled as to how to climb down, requiring some guidance.
An extensive study of bobcats in the Fort Worth metroplex—in which researchers caught bobcats, fitted them with GPS collars and studied them for a year—revealed that bobcats traipse right through the city, evidently appreciating plentiful rodents and solid, reliable structures, which, unlike creek beds, do not flood. But people rarely see them.
Bobcats do not normally prey on pets, but they have attacked and killed aggressive little dogs ten pounds and under. And they do relish a clutch of chickens. Blihovde, who senses no widespread animosity towards bobcats, said farmers and ranchers complain more about coyotes, who do large-scale raiding. A bobcat, unless rabid, poses no danger to us.
Bobcats are good neighbors; they tamp down populations of rabbits, rodents and deer, the latter helping minimalize automobile collisions.
Spotting any wild feline is a thrill. One rarely spots a reclusive ocelot, though it is heartening to walk among them. A mountain lion prompts fear and preventive action. Meeting a bobcat, though, brings joy.