A bobcat, with its characteristic reddish fur and black markings, trots across a snow-covered field in central Oregon, in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, hunting birds at the Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery. It could almost be mistaken for a giant domestic cat, except for its massive legs, a shorter neck than any house feline, ears topped with thin tufts of dark fur, and a stubby tail standing up straight. Though seldom seen by people, Lynx rufus is the most successful small wildcat in North America. “Bobcats are in the process of a large-scale recovery and have an almost continental distribution, in the United States, at least — from the West to the East, and North to South,” said Taal Levi, a biologist at Oregon State University who studies the effects of hunting, disease and climate change on wildlife. Bobcat numbers were nearly nil by around 1900, but have rebounded to several million today, ranging from southern Canada through the contiguous United States into southern Mexico. They’re resilient, even when living at the edge of asphalt and near people. Bobcats remain wild and elusive while hunting and residing near towns. Security cameras often catch them skulking down roads and up driveways, sometimes rummaging in people’s gardens, chasing a rabbit, or tossing around a mouse snatched from beneath a foundation. Bobcats also use human-built hiking trails — or, perhaps, it’s humans who made trails along the bobcats’ forested routes. “I often saw them hunting on the trails I ran [near San Francisco,…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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