Are there wild cats in Florida? The answer is Yes. The sunshine state has two different native species of wildcats, the bobcat and the Florida panther. Additionally, the state of Florida has a huge population of non-native feral cats.
Let’s talk about each one of these in a little more detail.
Bobcats in Florida (Lynx rufus)
The Florida bobcat, which is sometimes called the Florida lynx, is actually a species of lynx, related to the Canada lynx. They are exclusively a North American wild cat and are also the most common wild cat species in North America.
Biologists believe that both the bobcat and the Canada lynx are descendants of the Eurasian lynx and their ancestors crossed into North America via the Bearing Sea land bridge.
Where do bobcats live?
These small wild cats live in three North American countries. Their range begins in southern Canada and then extends south through most of the United States and down into central Mexico.
Compared to Canada 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 oversized large paws function like snowshoes keeping it on the snow’s surface. 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.
Admittedly, snow is never an issue in Florida. The commentary on snow is still important in establishing the bobcat’s broader range over the entirety of North America.
The Florida bobcat population is distributed throughout all 67 of the state’s counties. These cats are mostly a crepuscular or nocturnal animal but it’s not uncommon to see one out and about in the daytime because they only sleep for 2 to 3 hours at a time.
In Florida, bobcats are pretty versatile and tend to utilize all the different habitats within their range. You can find bobcat populations anywhere, from areas with deep forest to swamps and semi-forested areas. You’ll even find them in agricultural areas and or urban areas.
Bobcats are solitary animals with the exceptions of during mating season or when a female is raising young. They are territorial and live in home ranges that they patrol and scent mark with urine and feces.
In Florida, the home range of a male bobcat can be over 10 square miles, while female bobcat home ranges can be less than 1 square mile. One more thing about home ranges is that adult males and adult females sometimes have overlapping ranges.
What do bobcats look like?
An adult bobcat is about twice the size of a domestic cat. They are 2 to 4 feet long with proportionately long legs.
Male Florida bobcats are roughly 39 inches in length and weigh 20 to 30 pounds. On the other hand, females weigh 15 to 25 pounds.
These animals have a “bobbed,” short tail with black bands on its upper surface. Their tail also has a black tip on its upper surface but not the back. Their fur is usually gray to brown, with mottled black spots interspersed with black lines on their bodies. 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, proportionately large ears. In other words, they have short ear tufts of hair that poke up above their ears that are black at the tips. The backs of their ears, below the black tips, are black. They have white spots in the center of each ear’s backside. 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.
Black bobcats, more precisely termed, melanistic bobcats are very rare, but they do occur in Florida These animals have the same markings as regular bobcats of darker black on top of a grey background.
“On a side note, what people term as a black panther is actually either a melanistic jaguar or a melanistic leopard.”
What do bobcats eat in Florida?
Despite their comparatively small size, bobcats are aggressive, tough predators. At times, they take down wild animals that are several times larger than they are, such as wild hogs and white-tailed deer. However, their regular diets mainly consist of small mammals such as eastern cottontails, swamp rabbits, and assorted rodents. They also eat reptiles, birds, insects, and carrion. When they take up residence close to a residential area, their menu might occasionally also include domestic animals, such as small pets, and/or small livestock, such as goats or chickens.
They even use venomous snakes as a food source 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.
Reproduction and life cycle for bobcats
Bobcats mate anywhere in February and March. During the breeding season, a male bobcat may mate with multiple females. If they successfully mate, the gestation period for bobcats is 60 days.
After breeding, the male and female go their separate ways. The female takes all responsibility for the selection of a den site and the rearing of the young. Females generally give birth between late April and early May. See
Bobcats use features such as a rock outcropping, an opening in the ground, the cavity beneath an overturned stump, or the space beneath a blown-down tree as denning sites.
The average bobcat litter size is 3 kittens. 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 the mother bobcats 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, the average life span of a bobcat is 7 to 10 years. See
Hunting and trapping Florida bobcats
Hunting and trapping bobcats is legal in Florida. See here for more information.
Florida Panther (Puma concolor cougar)
The Florida Panther is actually a Mountain lion sub-species that lives in southwest Florida. These are the only known population of cougars living in the eastern U.S. They are extremely rare. Only around 230 of them exist in the wild. They were one of the first species to be protected under the federal endangered species act of 1973.
Prior to the time of colonization by European Americans in their territory, these large cats were numerous and ranged across all or part of 8 southeastern states.
In 1832, a bounty was placed on panthers in the southeastern U.S. due to their impacts on livestock and wildlife. By the 1950s, it was believed that they were extinct. However, in 1973 a small population of them was discovered in south Florida and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service placed them on the endangered species list.
Efforts to combat the effects of inbreeding
By the early 1990s, there were only 20 to 30 Florida panthers left in the wild. Because this breeding population had such a narrow genetic base, many of the animals that were left were suffering from various deleterious genetic conditions that were brought to expression due to the fact that all of the animals had very high inbreeding coefficients, since inbreeding allows what would otherwise be recessive genetic traits to be expressed.
One of these genetic conditions was an atrial septal defect which is a heart defect that allows blood to flow between the top two chambers of the heart.
Another genetic condition that researchers found to be prevalent in Florida’s panther population was cryptorchidism. A cryptorchid male has either one, “unilateral” or two “bilateral” undescended testicles. A bilateral cryptorchid male is incapable of reproducing. Male Florida panthers were also found to have low sperm counts and low sperm quality.
The panthers surveyed in the early 1990s were also observed to be carrying extremely high parasite loads due to having an impaired immune response.
Conservation biologists determined that it would be necessary to introduce outside genes into the existing genetic base to improve the overall fitness of the remaining animals. Consequently, in 1995, they released 8 female cougars from Texas into the Florida panther recovery area.
This injection of outside genes into the population produced an overall improvement in the fitness of the group. By 2008, the Florida panther population had quadrupled to around 120 animals. See
Taxonomic classification
These cats were designated a distinct cougar sub-species with the scientific name, (Puma concolor coryi) by the American zoologist Outram Bangs, in 1899. However mitochondrial DNA analysis performed in 2006 showed that many of the cougar sub-species described in the 19th century were too closely related to be considered distinct sub-species. At that time, Florida Panthers received the scientific sub name, North American cougar or (Puma concolor couguar). Subsequently, in 2017, the Cat Classification Taskforce of the Cat Specialist Group reclassified all North American mountain lion populations into the subclass (Puma concolor couguar). See
What do Florida panthers look like?
Florida panthers are large, long-tailed cats. In appearance, they look a lot like giant house cats with short tan fur. One of these animals is much bigger than a domestic cat, though. They generally 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. A panther’s tail accounts for almost one-third of its entire length. Their long tail acts as a counterweight and helps them keep balance.
Their color varies from pale or rusty brown on their sides and backs to dull white or cream color on their bellies. The backs of their ears, their tail tips, and sides of nose are dark brown to blackish.
In size, Florida panthers follow Bergmann’s rule in that they are smaller than cougars from the western U.S. and Canada and yet larger than cougars at more southerly latitudes.
Mature male wild Florida panthers weigh from 100 to 160 pounds (45 – 72 kg). On the other hand, female Florida panthers weigh between 70 and 100 pounds (30 – 45 kg). These big cats vary in height from 24 to 28 inches (60 – 70 cm) at the shoulder and range from 6 to 7.2 feet (1.8 – 2.2 m) long from the nose to the tip of the tail. See
Some characteristics that set Florida panthers apart from other cougars
A large percentage of Florida panthers have the following traits due to the fact that they live in a small, isolated breeding population.
- 88% of all Florida panthers have a right-angle kink at the tip of their tail.
- 94% of all Florida Panthers have a hair whorl or a cowlick in the middle of their back.
- A lot of Florida Panthers have spots of white fur on the neck and back.
What do Florida panthers eat?
Florida panthers are apex predators in their environment and eat only meat. Consequently, they prey on white-tailed deer, feral hogs, raccoons, armadillos, birds, rabbits, rats, and an occasional alligator. They need the equivalent in mass of one deer or hog per week to survive.
Where do Florida panthers live?
The original range of the Florida panther extended through the states of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. They also ranged through parts of Tennessee and South Carolina.
Today Florida Panthers live in less than 5% of their original territory. They live only on the Florida peninsula, primarily south of 29 degrees north latitude. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has documented male Florida Panthers to travel as far north as Georgia. However, female Florida panthers have never been known to travel away from southern Florida, where their breeding population exists.
Their preferred habitat includes freshwater swamp forests pinelands and tropical hardwood hammocks in south Florida. Some places where you have an increased chance of running into a Florida panther are Big Cypress National Preserve, Everglades National Park, the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, and the Picayune Strande National Forest. See
Feral cats in Florida
The agreeable climate and the abundance of small prey animals make Florida prime habitat for feral cats. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the population estimates for feral cats within the state are somewhere between 6.3 and 9.6 million animals. See
This is a major invasive species catastrophe. There are known feral cat colonies in 17 Florida counties. the largest of which numbers over 1000 animals.
This huge feral cat population is a threat to native wildlife populations. They take prey animals away from native wild cats and also spread harmful diseases.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission encourages the state’s cat owners to become responsible and proactive in not contributing to the state’s feral cat problem.
