BigGameHoundsmen.com

do bobcats cover there kills like a lion does?

yep
jc

I remember catching one nice tom off a freshly killed doe .He had a few mouthfulls out of a ham before ole Rock jumped him.He didn't have time to cover it.Another time my ole Lady dog struck off a dead doe that had been covered .I thought she was after a lion but it was a 25lb bobcat .

I have seen quite a few hare and squirrel kills where the bobcat consumed the entire animal. They are scavengers and will take opportunity whenever possible. I have found many bobcat on road kills, scrap piles, and on lion and coyote kills. I never have witnessed where one has ever made an attempt to bury one back up.

Generally on small prey they don't but deer killers usually do.

Several years ago I had a friend call my cell phone and tell me he had just found a fresh lion kill on one of his lease roads. I was hunting in an area close by so I jumped my horse back in the trailer and beat it over there. there was a locked gate at the entrance to this road but he told me the kill was only about 100 yards down the road so I just went over the fence and walked down to investigate. Sure enough there was a fresh drag mark going across the road and a little searching turned up a nice fat fork horn mule deer buck neatly covered in a small patch of gambels oak brush. But things didn't add up, no lion tracks!

I got down and really examined close and found the tracks of a really big tom bobcat and that was all. Now this deer would have weighed close to 150 pounds all together, and I found where the cat jumped him in his bed and it didn't appear that he ever fully got to his feet. the ground was tore up a little but not bad so he must have killed him pretty quick. He then drug the buck about 25 feet across this two track road and stashed him in that oak brush.

Well I walked back to the truck let Booger, Kate and Little Blue out and walked them over towards the kill. Well things happened fast then and when old Kate hit it she let out a bawl and the next thing those 3 dogs just left there heading west. Well in about 30 minutes I was walking up to the treed dogs who were treeing up a good big ponderosa pine. Away up high sat a very large and super well furred tom bobcat. A few photos and then a 22 hollowpoint dropped him cartwheeling out of the tree. He was a dandy cat and weighed 34 pounds which is a good cat for this area. But think about a 34 pound critter killing and dragging a 150 pound deer. Pretty good effort I thought.

I have seen where bobcats have covered or attempted to cover large kills deer, goats and beaver. I have not seen where they have covered the hole kill like a lion. They seem to cover kills that they plan on coming back to with a little grass, leaves or debris that is handy. It is easy to tell from a lion kill by the sign, tracks, size of the foot dragging up the debris and reach that they reach out to drag up cover. I have never seen a full cover as lion do. I have never seen a bobcat cover small game that he has killed and eaten most of the kill. Dewey

3 years ago I came across a similar scene as Mike just described…I was making a circle and saw a few birds fly up on a south slope with crusted up frozen snow. I hiked up to see what we had, and found a battle ground. This yearling doe had put up quite the fight, the battle took place across more than a hundred yards with blood and hair scattered everywhere. Upon initial inspection given the evidence I assumed coyotes had taken this doe down but after I found the kill half covered with 4-8” pieces of that crusted snow I knew different. Further investigation lead me to find 3 sets of bobcat tracks…looked to be a female with 2 young ones.

I too got excited and dumped the box to sort this out…although my ending was none the less a defeat we got beat in the rocks and didn’t get one caught.

As previously mentioned my findings are the same rarely does the short tail cover up their prey unless there is enough left to return to…

That said it amazes me the amount of grit determination and just plain evil a bobcat has coursing through its veins. Like I’ve said before if the lion had that much aggression we would all be out of business.