Indiana's first bobcat trapping season since 1969 has ended more than a month early. The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) closed the trapping season Dec. 6 because the annual limit of animals had been killed.
The season opened Nov. 8 and was slated to run through Jan. 31, or whenever the statewide quota of 250 bobcats was met. Trappers were allowed to take one animal per season.
"The harvest seemed to go pretty smoothly," says Geriann Albers, DNR furbearer and gamebird program leader. "We did think, with the interest in this being the first season, we were likely to close before the potential end of Jan. 31, and we did. ... We haven't heard anything negative from our harvesters, so, hopefully everything went pretty smoothly for them, too."
Albers says the final count of 253 bobcats is slightly over the 250 limit because any bobcats that were caught the day DNR closed the season were still legal. The agency sold 1,642 trapping licenses.
Bobcats were taken off the Indiana endangered species list in 2005. Indiana lawmakers approved establishing a bobcat trapping season in 2024. Under the new rules, trappers were allowed to hunt for the animals in 40 southern Indiana counties, including Dearborn, Franklin, Ohio, Ripley and Switzerland.
According to the DNR website, 13 bobcats were taken in the WVXU listening area. That includes four in Franklin County, zero in Ohio County and three in Dearborn, Ripley and Switzerland counties.
Albers says the agency will study the data from this first season and, along with a survey of licensed trappers, use that information to inform future trapping seasons and bag limits.
While she expects many trappers may keep the pelts from this first season, Albers says most of the fur from Indiana trappers goes to overseas markets in Asia. She says you can eat bobcat, too.
"Actually, they're really good meat."
Reaction
The Indiana State Trappers Association says the season went well. Board Member Nick Erny says there are few changes he'd like to see before next year's season.
"I think maybe the quota needs to be raised some," he says. "They give us almost three months to fill a season, and we done it less than a month. Obviously our population is way better than what they figure it is."
He says most trappers also would like to see the start of the trapping season pushed back to Dec. 1 to give the animals' fur more time to "prime up" or become more dense, making for a better animal pelt.
Albers says DNR may consider that in the future, but Nov. 8 was selected as the start date to simplify the process since other trapping seasons open the same day.
The Humane World for Animals, formerly known as The Humane Society, issued a statement condemning bobcat trapping, and saying the "DNR still lacks reliable population data, so the impact of this loss of hundreds of bobcats is unknown, and likely to be devastating."
It also points to a study it commissioned which suggests a majority of Hoosiers oppose bobcat trapping.
Samantha Chapman, Indiana state director for Humane World for Animals, said, “This bobcat trapping season was nothing short of a mass slaughter. Since Nov. 8, recreational trappers have killed an average of about nine bobcats every day, hitting the killing limit of 250 in just one month. That’s hundreds of bobcats who suffered in traps before being strangled, bludgeoned or shot to death."
Bobcats were extirpated from the state by the early 1900s, meaning while they weren't extinct, there weren't any in Indiana. They began showing back up in the 1970s. The animals have since been spotted in nearly every Indiana county. The DNR created a statewide spotting database in 2020. As of mid-2024, bobcats have been confirmed in 77 of 92 counties, and reported in all but four, according to the state.
Bobcats in Ohio and Kentucky
Bobcats are native to Ohio but were extirpated from the state by the 1850s. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) reports the wild cat species began repopulating in the mid-1900s, but sightings are more frequent in the southern and eastern parts of the state.
The most recent report from the state, dated September 2023, states the Division of Wildlife had 561 confirmed sightings of bobcats in 2021. Sightings are largely confirmed using trail or security cameras and roadkill reports.
Bobcats have been confirmed in 81 of Ohio's 88 counties, including all counties in Southwest Ohio. Warren County was the most recent to join the list, with the first confirmed sighting in 2021.
Ohio is not currently considering a bobcat trapping season, according to ODNR.
Kentucky allows both bobcat hunting and trapping. This year's bobcat hunting season runs from Nov. 15 to Feb. 28, 2026, and the trapping season is slightly shorter, opening Nov. 10 and closing Feb. 28. The bag limit for bobcats is five per person, with no more than three to be taken by gun.
As of Dec. 9, 487 bobcats have been killed in Kentucky, including 364 that were hunted and 123 that were trapped. Locally, four were killed in Boone County; one in Campbell County; one in Gallatin County; six in Grant County; one in Kenton County; and seven in Pendleton County.
A source with the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources says, based on reports from staff and the public, bobcats are abundant in Kentucky. Public Information Officer Lisa Jackson reports that since Kentucky began having a bobcat season sometime in the '80s, it hasn't impacted the bobcat population to require setting an upper limit for bobcat take.
Read more:
