Are there wild cats in Connecticut? The answer is yes. There are 2 different types of wild cats that are native to Connecticut. However, according to the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection website, the bobcat is the only wild cat species with a breeding population within the state.
According to Jason Hawley, who is the Connecticut State Wildlife Biologist, the statewide bobcat population is somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 animals. See
Mountain lions are also native to Connecticut but are now expatriated from the state.
I also ran into one reference about Canada Lynx tracks being found in Connecticut in 2011 here. However, I cannot find any other point of reference indicating that lynxes do or ever have lived in the state.
Bobcats in Connecticut (Lynx Rufus)
The bobcat, which is also known as the red lynx, the bay lynx, or the swamp tiger, is a North American wild cat. Biologists believe that both the bobcat and the Canada lynx are descendants of the Eurasian lynx whose ancestors crossed into North America via the Bearing Sea land bridge.
Where do bobcats live?
Bobcats reside only in North America. They’re also the most common wild cat in North America. Their range begins in southern Canada and then extends south through most of the continental United States and down into central Mexico.
There are bobcats in Connecticut just as there are in all the New England states.
In Connecticut, bobcats live in all of the state’s 8 counties. However, the heaviest concentrations of population are in the northwestern corner of the state.
People rarely see them, though, because they are mostly a nocturnal or crepuscular animal. Your best chances of spotting one are in the early morning and early evening hours.
Down through the history of Connecticut, bobcats were viewed as a varmint animal that was a threat to other game animals and agricultural animals. The state paid a bounty on bobcats from 1935 through 1971.
The early 1970s brought a sizeable increase in the value of bobcat pelts. Wildlife officials were concerned that increased demand for bobcat pelts coupled with other factors such as habitat loss would be too much for the state’s bobcat population to absorb. Consequentially, in 1972, the bobcat was reclassified as a protected furbearer in Connecticut. with no hunting or trapping seasons.
Other than their inability to cope with deep snow, bobcats are pretty versatile and tend to utilize all the different habitats within their range. You can find bobcats anywhere, from forested mountains to swamps, agricultural areas, and suburban areas with woodlots. They also seem to thrive in wooded areas in close proximity to clear cuts. Studies show that small mammal populations increase in clear-cut areas. This is due to the improved food and cover conditions that a clear-cut creates.
The home range size for bobcats in Connecticut varies from 8 to 20 square miles. Adult males utilize a bigger range than adult females do.
Sometimes people in rural or even suburban and urban areas have bobcats in the neighborhood, and they don’t realize it. It’s a very rare occurrence, but sometimes these animals will end up in someone’s home or garage. If you ever accidentally corner a bobcat, immediately give it some space. Back away and leave a door open for it to escape on its own. Do not approach a cornered bobcat. These are dangerous wild animals and will do their best to tear you up if they feel the need to defend themselves. If you have an intruding bobcat that won’t leave on its own, call on your local fish and game officer to remove it for you. See also See
What do bobcats look like?
An adult bobcat is similar to their close relative, the Canadian lynx, in appearance with some differences. An Adult bobcat is slightly smaller than an adult Canada lynx.
Compared to Canadian lynx, which thrive in deep snow country, bobcats struggle more in the snow due to the fact that they cannot walk on top of it like lynx can. A lynx’s large paws function like snowshoes keeping it on the snow’s surface. They have evolved this characteristic to hunt snowshoe hares in the winter. On the other hand, compared to lynx, bobcats have small feet that tend to sink into the snow. If the snow is too deep and powdery, it reduces their mobility along with their ability to catch prey.
A bobcat is 2 to 3 feet long and weighs about 15 to 35 pounds. Adult male bobcats are quite a bit larger than females.
These animals have “bobbed,” short tails with black tips and black bars on the upper surface. The black tip on their tail is only on its upper surface but not the back. As opposed to a lynx’s tail which looks like it was dipped in black paint.
Their fur is usually gray to brown, with mottled dark spots that range from black to dark brown on their bodies. “A note on this is that in the eastern U.S., bobcats have fewer spots on their bodies than bobcats in the west do.” They also have black stripes on their inner forelegs and tail.
From a side view, you will notice that a bobcat is slightly higher at the rump than at the shoulders. Bobcats and lynx have long hind legs in proportion to their forelegs.
Bobcats have black-tufted ears. In other words, they have short tufts of black hair that poke up above their ears that are black at the tips. The backs of their ears, below the black tips, are black. In the center of the black of each ear, they have a single white spot. This gives the impression of a false eye on the back of each ear.
They also have a whiskered face that seems broader due to their long ruffled facial hair and whiskers. Their eyes are yellow with round black pupils.
In 2020, film footage of a rare black bobcat was taken near Danville, Vermont. See. These melanistic bobcats have all the markings that non-melanistic ones do. They manifest as darker black spots on top of lighter black or dark grey.
What do bobcats eat?
Despite their comparatively small size, bobcats are aggressive, tough predators. At times, particularly during the winter, they take larger prey species that are quite a bit bigger than they are, such as deer. In Connecticut, for instance, they sometimes prey on white-tailed deer.
However, their regular diets mainly consist of small mammals such as cottontail rabbits, woodchucks, squirrels, chipmunks, mice, and voles. They also feed on reptiles, birds, insects, and carrion. When they take up residence close to a residential area, their menu might occasionally also include small livestock, poultry, or small pets.
They even prey on venomous snakes when the opportunity arises despite not being immune to the venom. They accomplish this by using their quickness to pin the snake’s head down with a paw, after which they dispatch the snake with a quick bite to its spine behind the head. In Connecticut, the venomous snakes are the timber rattlesnake and the eastern copperhead. See
Reproduction and life cycle for eastern bobcats in Connecticut
Bobcats mate in February and March. During the breeding season, a male bobcat may mate with multiple females. Radio-collared males have been observed to travel up to 20 miles in a single night to get to a female in estrus.
If they successfully mate, the gestation period for bobcats is 60 days.
After breeding, the male and female go their separate ways. Other than in the exceptions of breeding and raising young, they’re solitary creatures.
The female takes all responsibility for the selection of a den site and the rearing of the young.
Bobcats often use rock crevices as den sites but may also den in the cavity beneath an overturned stump or beneath a blown-down tree,
In Connecticut, the bobcat litter size ranges from 1 to 4 kittens. The average size is 2.
Bobcat kittens are born with their eyes sealed, just like domestic cats are. However, their eyes will open when they are a week to 10 days old. By the time they are 2 months old, they will have replaced their spotted baby fur with a haircoat similar to what their parents have.
By mid-July, the kittens begin to venture out with their mothers to fine-tune their survival skills. Their training may last into the early winter. By mid-winter, the kittens strike out on their own.
Female bobcats reach sexual maturity at 1 year of age, while males reach sexual maturity at age 2.
In the wild, bobcats live 7 to 10 years. See
Connecticut Bobcat Project
The Connecticut Bobcat Project is made up of a team of biologists from the Connecticut DEEP Wildlife Division and researchers from the University of Connecticut.
One of the goals of the Connecticut Bobcat Project is to observe and document bobcat movements and habitat use within residential areas with different housing densities.
In 2018 and 2019, CBP researchers fitted over 100 bobcats in every part of the state with gps collars. The collars collected a GPS point every 4 hours for about one year. After that, all collars detached themselves from the bobcats. The last collar was recovered in March 2020, after which a dissection of the GPS data took place.
Are there mountain lions in Connecticut?
Mountain lions have been extinct in Connecticut since the 1800s. In fact, in 2011, the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service declared that the subspecies of mountain lion that once inhabited Connecticut, the eastern cougar is extinct.
According to Jason Hawley, who is a wildlife biologist with the Connecticut State Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, who I mentioned at the beginning of this article, the department gets around a hundred reports of mountain lion sightings a year. However, a lot of these turn out to be bobcats. See. As far as anyone can determine, there is no breeding mountain lion population in Connecticut.
This is not to say that mountain lions do not wander through the state from time to time. At times young male cougars travel 100s of miles from established populations as they attempt to establish their own territory.
A famous case of this occurred in 2011 when a young male mountain lion died after a car collided with him on a highway near Milford, Connecticut. Wildlife officials determined that the big cat had traveled over 1500 miles from South Dakota to be there.
Where do mountain lions live?
Mountain lions claim territory on all three American Continents. Their range begins in the Yukon territory of Canada in the north and extends down through parts of North America, Central America, and South America to the Straits of Magellan in the south.
The biggest populations in Canada are in British Columbia and Alberta. On the other hand, in the U.S., they mainly live in the western states and Florida. The people of Florida call this elusive cat the Florida Panther
What do mountain lions look like?
Mountain lions look a lot like giant oversized house cats with short tan hair. One of these animals is much bigger than a domestic cat, though. They are beautiful animals that have lean, muscular bodies, rounded heads, and upright ears that are oval at the tip. They also have a long tail, which is tan with a black tip. Their tail accounts for almost one-third of their entire length. Their long tails help them keep balance.
Mountain lions have an orange-tinged or yellowish-light-brown coat of short, coarse hair that covers most of their body. The area around their nose, the tip of their tail, and the tips of their ears are black. Their belly, the area above their upper lip, lower lip, and chin are all white. They also have a sprinkling of dark hair on their backs. Their coat color varies somewhat in different geographic locations.
Male and female mountain lions are phenotypically identical in every respect except for size. Males are 30 to 40% bigger than females. Though sizes vary considerably throughout the cat’s geographic range, an adult male or tom typically weighs between 110 and 180 pounds, 50 to (82 kgs). A rare few of them grow bigger than 200 pounds (91kgs). Female mountain lions or queens average between 80 and 130 pounds (36 to 59 kgs). Adult males or toms will reach 6 to 8 feet (1.8 to 2.4 M) from their snout to the tip of their tail. On the other hand, adult females are 5 to7 feet long (1.5 to 2.1 M).
Mountain lions are the fourth largest wildcat in the world. In the western hemisphere, they are smaller in size only to the Jaguar. Worldwide, the African Lion and the Tiger are also larger.
Despite their large size, mountain lions are not taxonomically classified as big cats because they cannot roar. Leopards, for example, are smaller than mountain lions, but since they can roar and cannot purr, they are classified as big cats, while mountain lions are not. Another interesting thing that I can mention here is that mountain lions purr.
Since they purr and cannot roar, mountain lions are in the Felis genus. Meanwhile, big cats, such as the African lion, tigers, leopards, snow leopards, and jaguars which cannot purr and can roar, are in the Panthera genus.
