Aging bobcats

[Tanner Peyton]

For those of you who try and pay attention to the age of your cats killed and left in a tree. What things do you all look at? Teeth, size, color, ect. I've never really gave it much though but I'm gonna start trying to be more detailed and pay attention. Thanks

[mike martell]

Tanner

The best thing you can do is invest in a good pair of optics. This will enable you to identify the characteristics of bobcats. Being able to see clearly and up close is the biggest thing you can do to make sure you don't harvest a sub adult bobcat.

[dwalton]

As Mike mention optics are great but it takes experience to really tell what you have up a tree when it comes to bobcats. All of us make mistakes as to size but be honest with your self if it does not look big it is not. With the low bobcat prices I tried to just hunt toms this last year. With 30 bobcat treed, 28 harvested kill ratio 22 tons ,6 females. It is easy with snow just don't turn out on females or kittens. It will hurt the over all catch numbers but is fun to see what is possible.On bare ground don't hunt the prime habitat where you are more likely to hit a female or kittens. Hit the high ridges where toms share bathrooms and travel more keeping track of the females. If I find where a tom is traveling and marking I keep going back until I catch him. Back in the late '60 and early '70 when the lion populations were low when we cut a nice tom we hunted that lion until he was caught. You can do the same with bobcats and it will give you a lot of satisfaction as to your ability as a hunter. Good luck Dewey

[Twopipe]

I gotta say that I'm pretty proud of hunters here in MN. The cats hunters took were 70% males last season whereas the trapper's take was 49% males. I have absolutely nothing against trappers, I am one myself. I'm just saying hound hunting is much more selective.
As for aging, the DNR ages every cat using a tooth but I don't think it'd be possible to get the age of a cat that a person had taken as the carcasses are all put in a pile with no identification attached.

[Mike Leonard]

Some great information here!

Mike M and dwalton, thanks for your great information. I catch the rare bobcat but I sure do not qualify as a bobcat hunter but I like to learn.

In our area the lion population is low mostly do to not that much ideal habitat and also prime prey species numbers fluctuate widely. We use the approach dwalton outlined concentrating our bare ground efforts on those areas that toms frequent more than females and subs. Unless we are called on a depredation type situation we harvest very few lions but it is always fun and satisfying to profile a big tom and hang in there till you can get him to grin for the camera. LOL!

Our cottontail numbers have been way up the past several years and we are certainly seeing more sub adult bobcat sign so that is encouraging.

[dwalton]

Twopipe We have to turn in the lower jaw to get a export tag on our bobcats taken. On it is your idea, county and sex of the cat. I have wrote on the back and requested the age of some bobcats in the past and have received a reply months later at times. The oldest was 14 years and 12 years both of these bobcats canines were at gum level. This was done in the late '70 or early '80, very high bobcat fur prices,with heavy hunting and trapping both cats were taken in areas of high use on public ground. At that time we were tagging 3000 bobcats in western Oregon alone. Now we tag less than 1000. We had prime habitat with logging going on then with a high recovery with young cats every year. Now with fewer cats taken and no logging going on there seems to be less bobcats or just maybe I am slowing down a little not covering the ground I did back then. Toms are a lot easier to catch out here than a female, a lot of the combination hunters rely on snow and have trouble treeing many females which would give you a difference with houndmens tom to female ratio. Dewey

[Tanner Peyton]

14 years old, holy cow that's really old. I didn't know bobcat could reach that age in the wild. I like the idea of looking at teeth. That seems to be the standard for aging wild critters clear across the board. I would sure like to get a hold of some of that research. Interestingly enough I'm not sure if it carries from house cats to bobcats. But I found that apparently the iris of a young cat is extremely straight and well signified where as the iris of an older cat is not as straight but has more jagged edges almost like a sawtooth. Maybe I should go have a talk with my local veterinarian and he can give me a few pointers as well. I think you guys are right though as far as what needs to be left in the tree. It just takes a lot of experience in order to be good at something like this. But what I'm really trying to do is get into the research aspect of this. I know in Nebraska these guys are doing a lot of lion research maybe I can talk them into letting me help. Then maybe do some bobcat research once I've earned their trust. Thanks for all your help fellas I appreciate it.