Bobcats home range

[sdred]

I've heard alot about how large a Mountain lions home range is and the differences between male and females but What I would like to know is do bobcats have home ranges do the males travel as much as the big cats or is it usually food related. Another question do the female young move as far away from their mothers home range as the males or do they usually overlap with their mothers.

[liontracker]

Around here, on the edge of the mountains, a male bobcats home range is about 5 square miles, vs 100 or more sq.mi. for a male lion.

[sdred]

Now do you know, do they defend that territory well or do other males move around in that same area also. The reason i ask is it seems that the places I hunt we seem to run into more females in a certain area then males. Are the younger males in maybe some less then prime looking bobcat areas. The guys around here that trap also seem to catch more females in a given area then males and alot of times in the same sets. I always think they will trap them selves out if they keep taking those females, but they seem to catch cats year after year. 5 square sure fits the bill for around here for a dominant male.

[liontracker]

I believe you are reading your situation correctly.

[Dads dogboy]

sdred,

I have been trying to find where on the internet a really great paper on Bobcats is hiding. I used to be able to Google bobcats and it would come up on the first or second page. Today I can not seem to find it. It gave the most comprehensive info on Bobcats in North America that we have seen. I have it hard copied and if I don't find it later tonight I will scan it in and Post it.

This Study done by University of Nebraska I believe, took info from studies done in TX, LA, FL, GA, WY, ID, MT, AZ and CA and simplified the Data. It is darn good.

Back on this Posts Topic, it said that usually Males had a range of three times as great as Females. In South TX and the Gulf Coast bordering areas you could find up to 4 Females per section. Here where we live we have One Female per every section or sometimes two sections. Our research has shown these numbers fairly accurate.

The Study went on to say that out West a Female could have a territory of up to 4 or 5 sections with Males sometimes ranging over 40 sq miles.

It says males are and can be very aggressive towards other males and Bobcat Kittens!

So Long and hope this Helps!

C. John Clay
Dads Dogboy

[Budd Denny]

A # of times I have trapped or dog caught big toms in the same section within a couple days of each other. Try and leave as many females as possible to keep the toms around. JMO

[Dads dogboy]

Mr. Budd,

Dads has a friend who tells of a little Sow Cat that lived in a Plantation just off of a Crossroads. This fellow had left her in a Tree ahead of his hounds several times in a period of a couple of years.

During this time frame this Cat hunter caught over 20 Toms struck at this Crossroads. This was the good news, Bad news was one time the Sow forgot to Climb and Bobcats became hard to find!

C. John Clay
Dads Dogboy

PS here is a link to a good resource for Bobcat info, not the one I referenced ealier still looking for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobcat

Finally found the site I was looking for, this has some good info from across the nation!
http://icwdm.org/handbook/carnivor/ca_c35.pdf

[BEAR HUNTER]

A few years back I had access to a ranch that the Sacramento river ran through. The bobcats would follow it down from the foothills feeding on all the quail, turkey, and deer fawns, and cranes that nested there. There was one paticular patch that they seemed drawn to. When one was killed out within two-three weeks another one had taken its place. Always seemed to be one cat at a time. The Guy I was hunting with killed 9 or 10 out of there as that was his job, preditor control on the ranch. They were mixed bag males and females. I wasnt with him on all of them so don't know if they were young or old. The last one I saw him take was a big male.

[sdred]

Thanks guys for all the input Thanks Dads Dog Boy for the sites, and please keep telling about your races and your( Dads knowledge and yours of bobcat hunting). I'm a coach of a high school football and basketball team so maybe I just need a game plan when I go out. Trying to figure out how to harvest a few males a year to offset a little part of cost but without damaging the numbers we have in certain areas, trying to take a few big Toms leave all little ones in trees. A couple of years ago a friend of mine called after a snow, it snowed late afternoon the day before and he found a nice size bob track so I put down on it. Well it took a while to get to where this ole boy was going went about 4 miles from one creek bottom to a bigger creek bottom ,canyoun or draw depending where you are from, well any way it's warming up by the time we get there and holy buckets of bob tracks we crossed lots of tracks ended up with 0 in trees but the big tom got inbetween my lead dog and my other dog with my buddy in the mix two. He said he turned around thinking my dog was behind him and there stood the bob about 20yd away looked at him and then boogied up a finger, dog not far behind. Well by this time my lead dog was coming back down this finger and I could hear the race coming towards us and in a clearing about 30 yd away out ran this little (looked like a female or juv) stopped looked at us and then ran right back across the area we just ran up. I had to go to practice and my dogs hit all those tracks and cross tracks and looked at me as if to say which one. So we loaded up and left. He trapped there last year and caught 4 cats out of that area in about a 2 week window (he traps if the sign and numbers are there and doesn't if they are not) but the area I'm talking about is about 3 to 4 sections of badland creeks with 2 live creeks. Now the crossroads statement is starting to make sence. And the info is consistent with my findings of different female and juv groups with the larger male with a big territory.

[david]

We have areas of many miles of inaccessable swamp land with bordering roads that prick the edges of the area.
I have noticed it seems like the deeper seated area cats are very aware of the presence of neighbors and know very soon of their demise. I too like taking the big toms and leaving the rest. I have seen the removal of a big tom cause a sudden influx of smaller cats into an area. I mean, within days. I always get the immage in my mind of the scene from the wizard of Oz when the wicked witch is killed. The little munchkins come out of the woodwork from every direction. "ding dong the wicked witch is dead. High ho the mary o...." Makes me laugh. I hear those little cats singing that when I come into an area where a big tom was removed and is now littered with smaller tracks. Makes me feel like a hero who carries a big house and knows how to use it. ha ha. It is probably an unstable time when the new ruler is not established yet.

I also have noticed that areas that are trapped heavily for fisher will have a higher concentration of smaller bobcat tracks. I am starting to beleive that fisher are the reason our cats dont tree. I have talked to those who say they used to climb trees alot more many years ago. Then came the high fisher populations. They are ruthless and gifted killers. Think about it. they can run down a squirrel in a tree. What chance would a small bobcat have with climbing a tree? The cats that survive these areas are the ones that hide in a hole behind momma. Natural selection. Those that naturally tree, die. Those that dont, have a chance to reproduce. I have thought of the fact that hunters also kill the bobcats that tree. This might add to the phenomonon, but my guess is that hunter influence on the gene pool would be minimal compared to the fisher.

Some studies I have read in years past said that the further North you go, the bigger the bobcats home range will be. It gave some population density figures that blew my mind for some areas of the south. I wont try to give numbers as my memory wont allow it. But I just remember thinking of living in an area where bobcats where that thick would be amazing. Like freecasting and walk hunting would be a very real and practical way to hunt bobcats. Up here, you could walk a long long time, because you can drive a long long time and never see a track.

People from some areas talk of frequently SEEING bobcats. Man. I have hunted areas where I tell land owners what I am doing. They just get a puzzeled look on their face and stare at me like I am crazy. Usually they dont say what they are thinking because they are too polite. But one land owner who could hear the dogs working said: "I have lived here since I was born seventy five years ago and have never seen a bobcat or ever heard of one being seen."

The same study also said that the female ranges will overlap, where as the male ranges will not.

[BEAR HUNTER]

About 5 years ago I hunted Eastman Lake at night quite a bit in Madera County Ca. The area is foothills with lots of oaks. There are HUGE rock piles everywhere. Tons of Cottontail rabbits. There is also the highest population of bobcats I have ever seen. NO racoons and few fox. It was not uncommon to be able to shine 1-2 a night while walking around with your flash light. The cats are small though and wont tree. They will hit those rock piles and lose the dogs. I was hunting 3 young dogs at the time. A Walker, An English Redtick, And a Super nice trigg pup. It used to frustrate me to no end when I would hike all the way in and have my dogs treeing on a rock pile. Finally the trigg pup figured it out. The cats would run into the rocks and then run out the other side. After that She was never fooled again. I wouldnt ever catch the cat but could just park and listen to the race for hours. Closest I got was when that little trigg female pushed a small cat out along a ridge. She put him up a small tree 3 times but each time he jumped before I could get under it. He finally made it back to some rocks. Lots of fun.

[Smith]

Where I hunt we can kill a big tom and every time we can go back to the same place and kill a smaller tom and the next time we might kill 2 smaller toms. We hunt alot of sheep and goat country and we might kill 1 big tom that is killing 2 kids goats a week, but then more cats move in the more kid goats we will find dead. We have a bunch of cats down here that love sheep and goats. Alot of ranchers have blamed the bobcat kills on coyotes. I caught a small tom one time and put a tracking collar on him for training dogs,that cat stayed between 2 windmills about 1 mile apart from each other until the cotton started growing and then he moved over and stayed in the irragated cotton,that was only 1.5 miles from the center of windmills. Man that was some good training on some pups.

[dwalton]

I worked on a bobcat study in the Oregon Cascades in the early 1980's. It was a time when the bobcats were trapped heavy. The home range on collared cats was 12 square miles. In the coast range a study had a range of 1 square mile. There is a lot more feed there. On the Olympic Peninsula in Washington the density was higher yet. In the fall of 2008 I was able to hunt for two weeks in about 30 square miles in the study area. I took 14 cats 10 were large toms. I expect there will be more cats there this year only more younger cats. Very few hound men or trappers are good enough to hurt the population, contrary to what some of them believe. There are a few that are good enough but with low fur prices and high cost most of the good ones will not be out there. Dewey