Bobcats return to the Finger Lakes Region of NY

I have been enjoying my camera traps for several years now and have been blogging about them for nearly two. But my fascination for them continues to grow. I have been toying with new sets lately and, as expected, have had mixed results. Not all new ideas are good ones. But it was an old fashioned hedgerow set this summer that produced my most unusual capture to date.

We had a group of middle-schoolers scheduled to visit our Muller Field Station this August for a day of outdoor adventure and a taste of science in the real world. I had set out some camera traps a few days earlier and to increase my chances of captures, I used some scent lures we had left over from a previous project. The field station is adjacent to a wetland and although we have only a narrow strip of forest along our old fields, we but up to almost two thousand acres of State-owned lowland ash-maple forest.

I gave the kids a brief introduction to camera traps (some were familiar with them from personal family use) and we predicted what animals we may capture given the habitat. Then it was time to check the cameras. I took them to the sets and explained at each one what my intention was. One was at the mouth of a culvert pipe, one was along a deer trail, etc. and the final camera was in the hedgerow closest to the buildings. I literally chose this location becuase it would bring us back around to the station along the easiest possible route. When we got back to the classroom, I pulled an SD card at random from my pocket without knowing which camera it came from.

Bobcat
(Richmand, NY 08/12)

And the very first photo from that very first card was the photo on the right: a BOBCAT! Well, half a bobcat. To say that I was excited is an understatement. Some of the middle-schoolers fed off my enthusiasm while others were more "Like, it's just a butt!". Well, yes, but it is the butt of a BOBCAT! Not only is a bobcat a pretty cool capture anyplace, it is particularly great here in the Finger Lakes because we are just getting a resident population back after many decades.

But that is news to some people. You see, sightings of bobcats have been much, much more common than the confirmed evidence would predict. Physical evidence of bobcats would most likely be road kill, camera trap photos and incidental captures in foothold traps. These forms of physical evidence have become increasingly more common in the Finger Lakes over the past ten years in particular. So why the "too-common" sightings? Misidentifications, of course. Feral cats are common and it is easy for someone to mistake a big feral cat with a bobcat.

Bobcat
(Richmond, NY 08/12)

It turns out I got two bobcat photos that day in August. The very next photo on the card was this one (left). The purplish color occurs when the light meter causes an incorrect exposure in low light conditions. It doesn't happen often but unfortunately it happened here. With the time stamps so close together, I have no reason to doubt that this was the same cat photographed earlier. I have to admit, the quality of the photos detracted some from the joy, but not much :)




The story isn't over yet. In September, I had my own students at the Muller Field Station for my Wetland Mammals class. Each group of students designes and implements a two-wwek field study with camera traps. This year, Stacy, Jeff and Adriel decided to compare wildlife crossing a beaver dam, a man-made bridge and a likely water route across the channel. The small iron bridge proved to be quite the highway for that two week period with red fox, gray squirrel, raccoon, BLACK BEAR and.... (wait for it)..... BOBCAT. And again there were two photos. This time, the pictures were from an IR camera, so they are black and white.

And a red fox for scale:

It turns out that this was the first confirmed bobcat in Honeoye Valley reported to the NYS DEC. What a thrill for my students and I. We were able to contribute a little to the natural history of this species. Leo Roth from the Rochester NY newspaper The Democrat and Chronicle did a story on it. And the timing of all this was perfect as the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation just released a new bobcat management plan for NY. You can find that plan here.

Looking forward to the next bobcat captures!

Bobcat dissection at FLCC

Bobcats are becoming more common in our neck of the woods and when a fresh roadkill showed up nearby this summer, the DEC offered to let me dissect it with my classes (as long as I retained a tooth for aging). I set the date for this past Tuesday in order to correspond with the Felidae lecture in CON 102. For a more complete treatment of bobcat tracks, see my previous post here.

The dissection was done as an activity for the FLCC Student Chapter of The Wildlife Society. Alyssa Johnson, current president, has agreed to create a sister post on her blog here.

Road killed bobcat from Howard, NY
(5/12)

Thirty-five students showed up along with Clinton Krager, a Biology Professor. We started with a look at the external anatomy. I asked the students to guess the weight. Most of us were a bit high in our estimate. She weighed 17 pounds. That is not a bad weight for a cat around here. I give my students three external characteristics to tell a bobcat from a lynx. In each case, the bobcat and the lynx share the characteristic but the lynx has more. For example, on the photo to the right you can see "sideburns". A lynx also has these facial tufts, but they are more pronounced.

Next, look at these ear tufts. Bob has them, but lynx has more.... On a bobcat they tend to be small (these are really small). On a lynx, they are much longer.

Bobcat ear tuft
(5/12)

Finally, examine the tail tip. Bob has black on his tail, but lynx has more. The bobcat tail is half black and half white. The lynx has a tail tip that is completely black.

Bobcat tail showing black and white tip
(5/12)

We then examined the feet. Cats have five toes on their front feet, but only four show up in the track. The other toe is higher up and often called the dew claw. It is functional though -- they can distend it when capturing prey.

Front feet of a bobcat
(5/12)

The rear feet show no such toe. They are smaller than the front feet. Check out the distinctive toes and foot pad.

Hind foot of a bobcat
(5/12)

It was a great experience for students and faculty alike. We all agreed we should do this more often. Now, click here for more photos and the "inside story", head over to Bearly Alyssa

Texas Bobcat!

Quick post as I do not have much time!



Bobcat track
(Austin, TX 2/12)

 I am near Austin, Texas this week for a workshop and brought along a Cuddeback Capture. I arrived at the lodging Friday at 4:30 pm and was out on their hiking trail by 4:45 looking for a likely location. I found some OLD bobcat tracks in the mud and hoped to get lucky. It rained for the first 30 hours I was here and I got no photos the first night. But it cleared up last night and I literally ran out to check the camera before breakfast. i found fresh bobcat tracks on the hiking trail and I just "knew" I caught an image of my first bobcat. I opened the camera and it indicated two photos. I had to get all the way back to my room and fire up the laptop to confirm what I already knew. I couldn't have asked for a better portrait for my first bobcat!

I have two more nights of trapping. :) I showed the photo to one of the staff members and she asked me to please not show any of the guests so they wouldn't be afraid... sigh.....


Bobcat on the prowl
(Austin, Tx 2/12)



Cat Track Fever III: Oddities on the trail of wild cats

My two previous posts have focused on showing you typical tracks in order to teach the basics. However, we saw our share of odd things during the week-long workshop on mountain lion tracking. Below is a sampling of some of the more interesting things we found:

Bobcat tracks with nails distended
(Montana, 2/11)

1. Bobcat nails. On the last day, we found some relatively fresh bobcat tracks and followed them for about a hundred yards. Along the trail, there was a rise. The bobcat stopped and sat near the top, just where the view would be the best. The 'cat resumed his travels and as it went down the steep icy slope, it distended its toes and extended its nails thus leaving some very odd looking tracks. In my last post, I showed how a cat's toes point forward in the track while a dog's toes point in a sprawling pattern. This bobcat is purposefully sprawling its toes in order to gain better traction.

Having nails show in a track is also more typical of a dog than a cat. But check out the marks that the nails left. They are thin slices rather than the more blunt marks made by a dog's nails. I can remember thinking at the time that they looked like slices from Samurai swords. I am not sure why I came up with that particular imagery, since I have never seen a Samurai sword in action.

Bobcat imperfect step (Montana, 2/11)

2. Bobcat imperfect step. While walking, it is typical for a cat to place its hind foot perfectly into the track left by the front foot. This is called "direct registering". However, not every single step lands perfectly. Here is an example of an imperfect step that makes the cat look like it had five toes.

If you look carefully at this track, you can see the mis-shaped foot pad. The toe that is all the way to the right is actually from the front foot. The rear foot came down a little off center and covered all of the rest of the front track. But that is nothing compared to the next photo.

Bobcat imperfect step showing heel print
(Montana, 2/11)

Here, we not only have an imperfect step, but we can see the entire heel pad of the hind foot. This is the part of the foot that normally does not touch the ground while the cat walks. However, the snow was deep and with the slight changes in topography, there were a few places where the whole foot left an imprint. This one is particularly odd because it combines the heel print with the imperfect step so it leaves a human-like five-toed print. One final thought: These are good examples of how a single track can be deceiving! Look at trails whenever possible...

Tail slap from mountain lion
(Montana, 2/11)

3. Mountain lion marks. Before I took this mountain lion tracking workshop, I had the impression that I would be seeing tail drag marks as a normal part of a cougar's trail. However, that was not the case. We tracked numerous lions over several different days for miles in deep snow and in all that time I only found a single mark in the snow that I could identify as from a lion's tail. I would call this a tail slap rather than a drag mark. There is a lot going on in this photo. I have to admit to not being able to decipher all of the action...

The lion is moving towards the bottom of the photo. Note the foot drags, bit tail drags in the trail. Also, see that the lion left an impression of its body in the snow, almost as if it crouched. Combine the body print with the tail slap and I had the impression (no pun intended) that the cat was startled or otherwise reacted quickly to something. Did he (track size indicated male) hear or see something of interest? After this brief oddity, the trail resumed its "normal" pattern.

Cat Track Fever: Mountian lion, lynx and bobcat compared

Tomorrow I will start covering Felines in class and that prompted me to update my presentation after taking a mountain lion tracking course this winter. I wrote a little about that course in the post "In like a lion..."  http://con102.blogspot.com/2011/03/in-like-lion.html  but I want to spend some more time on the subject...

The course was held the first week in February and used Great Falls, Montana as the home base of operations (although we travelled each day). We had the opportunity to compare and contrast all three wild cat species of Montana during the week, which was particularly helpful.

Cat tracks of just about any species have some commonalities. First, cats only walk on their toes and the "balls" of their feet. This is called "digitigrade" meaning "walking on the digits". There are four toes that normally show in either front or rear tracks. What people often call the heel pad of the track is actually the ball of the foot or the part just past the toes. The heel of a cat sits high up the leg and generally doesn't show in a normal gait. The four toes are arranged something like the four fingers of a human hand. Look for the longer of the two center toes to be the index finger and you will be able to tell a right from a left track. For example:



Bobcat, left print (Massachusetts, 1/11)

 Looking at the bobcat track to the right, I can see this is a left foot as the pinkie is all the way to the left and the index finger is to the right of center. Further, this will be a rear track. This bobcat was walking and stepping precisely in the impression made by the front foot. This is called "direct registering" and is common among many animals, but only in certain strides.

With no scale in this picture, you will have to trust me this is a bobcat. But the real purpose is to get you to start seeing right from left tracks.

Also note that there are no nail marks. I can assure you that sometimes cats will show nails and sometimes dogs of several species will not! However, this remains a valuable trait to note as I will explain in another post. One last piece of tracker terminology I need to share is the term "negative space" to refer to the part of the track BETWEEN toes and pads. For example, look at the undisturbed snow below the toes but above the ball of the foot. That is what some trackers call negative space.

Mountain lion: Mountain lions or cougars or puma or panthers or whatever you call them where you live have a track that is is large. A male lion being bigger should leave a larger track and I have seen measurements given in reference texts as large as 4+ inches long and over 3.5 inches wide. Please note that these numbers overlap what is given for lynx, so we will have to look at other clues besides just size to tell those two species apart. Here is a great example of a mountain lion track from Montana:



Mountain lion track, probably male (Montana, 2/11)

 We measured heel pads as well as overall track width. Jay, the instructor, made a good point that overall track size is more variable than the heel pad since the track has more than one part to it. So if the toes are splayed for traction that will effect the size of the track even though thte size fo the animal has not changed. The heel pad was also very easy to measure and he has found that a 2 inch heel pad is a good indication of a male lion versus a smaller female. Quick quiz! Is this a right or a left track? Did you get the answer RIGHT?

To measure the heel pad (which remember, is not really a heel but is commonly called that) we used a compass to get the most accurate measurement. I like that technique and carried one in my jacket pocket for the rest of the winter. I ended up jabbing myself more than anything so note to self was get one that still has the protective sleeve :)




Measuring a mountain lion track (Montana, 2/11)

  I have so many photos from this trip that it has been hard to select only the few to post here on the blog. None can capture the pure exhiliration I felt at being in the same space as these amazing creatures. It was with near reverence that I placed my fingers into the first set of tracks we found, knowing that only a few hours earlier a mountian lion had been there in that very spot. Like any true fan grinning over the autograph of his/her favorite athlete, singer or movie star, I could not help but gush over these signatures in the snow...

Final thoughts on the lion tracks: I was immediately struck with how easy they were to find. I know I said this in my March post, but if we had mountain lions here in the eastern US, the evidence for them would be overwhelming, abundant and readily available for all to examine and judge.







Lynx: Although lynx tracks can rival mountain lion tracks in size, there are several key differences. First, since the lynx is much smaller, the stride of the lynx's trail will be shorter. Secondly, there are some habitat preferences that can be used as a clue, especially in the winter. Lynx are much more comfortable in deeper snow and are often found higher in the mountains. Finally, the lynx track is simply a different shape than the mountain lion. Given that and the difference in stride length, I found it easy to distinguish the ones we found. Of course, after a one-week class, I am no expert and I am certain that there would be many exceptions out in the field. My point is only that with a little practice, anyone can achieve a modest level of proficiency in telling these two critters apart by tracks.



Lynx track (Montana, 2/11)

 
Using my glove for scale, you can see that overall this track is quite large and rivals a mountain lion. These are its natural snowshoes. However, look closely at the toes in particular. They are much smaller than the robost toes of the lion. Much of the track is fuzzy and indistinct due to the hair on the paws of the lynx. There is more negative space between each toe. Although the direction of travel is not in doubt in this track, I want to share something else jay taught us. We followed some old or wind blown tracks during the week that were not distinct at all and he said one good way to discern direction of travel is to remember "long in and short out". In other words, there is a long entry mark in the snow and a short exit mark. This is clear in the track to the right and I found it to be true for most tracks of all species.

We had to drive high into the mountains to find lynx. Jay knew of a road that had a ski resort at the end so it remained open high up. the scenery was amazing and the cold air felt good, as if I had earned it. I have never seen a wild lynx no less its tracks before so this was really something special. I took a photo of Jay and Bret inspecting the first set of lynx tracks we found to give you an idea of the terrain.

Bobcat: I am tired writing so you must be tired of reading by now! Thanks for hanging in there! Of our three cats toay, the bobcat leaves the smallest track of all and can even be as small as a house cat in some parts of its range. Halfpenny gives a size of less than 2 inches in his track book. We found bobcat tracks everywhere we found mountain lion. It wasn't until the final day that I discovered a set first. They seemed pretty fresh to me and we followed them for about 40 yards. here is a great example with my hand print for scale.


Bobcat track (Montana, 2/11)


By now you should be able to recognize the characteristic cat track shape. You should also be able to tell me if this is a right or left track. Bobcat are only starting to come back to the Finger Lakes region of NY and I cannot wait for the day when we have a breeding population to call our own. Until then, I will have to settle for traveling to see my wild cats becuase house cat just doesn't count :)

Unless the cameras turn up something unusual, I am thinking of two more posts on cat tracks. One will show some of the oddities we found while tracking the three species and the other will show specifics on how to tell lion tracks from dog tracks. Until then, I hope you are feline fine and having a purrfect day. :)