Indiana’s first bobcat season in decades is already over, but the work to gather data on bobcats in the state has just started.
Data from the season could settle a long debate between trappers and wildlife advocates about how many bobcats are in Indiana. Trappers say bobcats are plentiful enough to hunt, but wildlife advocates disagree.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources recently ended Indiana’s bobcat season early after trappers caught the state’s quota of 250 bobcats. The season was supposed to run from early November to late January, or until a quota was reached.
That might indicate Indiana has a healthy population of bobcats.
Geriann Albers is the furbearer and gamebird program leader for the DNR. She said the DNR needs more information to say for sure — like how many traps people set out over how many days.
“It's even more important to know how much effort people were expending to get there. Because that gives us a feel for people were having to work really hard to catch a bobcat or actually, it was pretty easy — the bobcats were probably doing pretty well and people were catching them really fast," Albers said.
Albers said most people who trapped bobcats this season were Indiana residents trapping on private land.
The DNR plans to survey people with bobcat licenses in the coming weeks and release its findings from the season in the spring or summer.
Rebecca is our energy and environment reporter. Contact her at rthiele@iu.edu or on Signal at IPBenvironment.01. Follow her on Twitter at @beckythiele.