The bobcat is the only native wild cat species living in the state of New Jersey.
Although multiple New Jersey residents report sightings of mountain lions, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection insists that the big cats do not exist within the state. The Mountain lion is a native wild cat to the garden state. However, they have been extirpated since the early 19th century.
We’ll talk more about bobcats and cougars in New Jersey in the paragraphs below.
Bobcats in New Jersey (Lynx rufus)
The Bobcat, which is also known as the red lynx, is a North American wild cat. They’re a close relative of the Canada lynx
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.
Bobcats are the most widely distributed cat in North America. Their range begins in southern Canada and extends south through the United States and down into northern Mexico.
Bobcats, along with black bears and eastern coyotes, are one of New Jersey’s main carnivores.
New Jersey is a historic range for the bobcat. In the past, it lived throughout the state. However, in the 1800s, bobcat numbers in the state began to dwindle due to habitat loss. The drop in the bobcat population coincided with European settlers clearing the state’s dense forests for lumber and fuel as well as clearing the land for agriculture. See
Bobcats were extirpated from New Jersey by the early 1970s.
Bobcat restoration project
In the time period of 1978 through 1982, the New Jersey Fish and Wildlife Department conducted a bobcat restoration project. This consisted of trapping 24 bobcats in Maine and releasing them in Northern New Jersey.
Today, although bobcats are still rare in New Jersey, their numbers appear to be rebounding in northwestern New Jersey. This is primarily in Morris County, Passaic County, Sussex County, and Warren County. There are also unconfirmed reports of bobcats in recent years in eastern, central, and southern New Jersey. In fact, in 2017, there were a couple of confirmed bobcat sightings in Mercer County.
The actual number of bobcats in New Jersey is difficult to ascertain because they’re elusive shy animals. However, the estimated population is from 250 to 280 animals.
Bobcats are on New Jersey’s endangered species list. Consequently, there is no bobcat hunting or trapping season in the state.
Bobcat Alley
The Nature Conservancy in New Jersey envisions and is working to preserve a corridor of over 400,000 acres of protected bobcat habitat between New Jersey’s two great mountain ranges, the Appalachians and the New York- New Jersey Highlands. They have named this green corridor Bobcat Alley.
Here’s a Quote from Eric Olsen who is who is the New Jersey Nature Conservancy’s director of land programs.
“Bobcats are truly a symbol of wildness,” says
Eric Olsen, Director of Lands Program for The
Nature Conservancy in New Jersey. “There
aren’t many creatures in New Jersey that give
you that sense.” See
What do Bobcats Look Like?
Bobcats are small wild cats. They’re roughly twice the size of a domestic cat. They lack a domestic cat’s long tail, though.
A bobcat is 2 to 3 feet long and weighs about 15 to 35 pounds. A Female bobcat is quite a bit smaller than a male.
These animals have a short, bobbed 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 dark markings that range from black to dark brown 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 back legs in proportion to their front legs.
Bobcats have smaller ear tufts than a lynx, but they have black-tufted ears just like a lynx does. In other words, they have tufts of hair that poke up above their ears that are black at the tips. The backs of the 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.
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 huge paws function like snowshoes keeping it on the snow’s surface. On the other hand, compared to lynxes, bobcats have small feet that tend to sink into the snow. Bobcat tracks are about half as wide as lynx tracks. If the snow is too deep and powdery, it reduces their mobility along with their ability to catch prey. This is why the bobcat range dies out in southern Canada; from there on north, Canada lynx are more prevalent and bobcats less so.
What do Bobcats Eat?
Despite their comparatively small size, bobcats are aggressive, tough predators. At times, particularly during the winter, they prey on animals that are much larger than they are, such as white-tailed deer. However, their regular diets mainly consist of smaller prey such as small mammals, reptiles, and birds such as an occasional wild turkey or pheasant, along with various songbirds, insects, and carrion. When they take up residence close to urban environments, their menu might occasionally also include feral cats or small pets.
Interestingly, bobcats even prey on venomous snakes, even though they are not immune to their 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.
New Jersey is home to 2 different venomous snakes. They are the Timber Rattlesnake and the Eastern Copperhead. See
Bobcat Behavior
Bobcats do not hibernate. They are active throughout the year. However, people rarely see elusive bobcats since they are predominantly nocturnal or crepuscular animals. See
Bobcats are solitary animals with the exceptions of during mating season or when a female is raising young. They are territorial and live in a home range that they patrol and scent mark with urine and feces.
The size of their home ranges varies with the geography and the availability of prey. Male bobcat home ranges are generally quite a bit larger than female bobcat home ranges and tend to overlap with female bobcat home ranges.
Reproduction and Life Cycle For Eastern Bobcats in New Jersey
According to Gretchen Fowles, who is a biologist with the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife, bobcats mate from January through 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 the root mass of a fallen tree or beneath a blown-down tree,
Bobcat litter size ranges from 1 to 7 kittens. The average size is 2 to 3.
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
Are there mountain lions in New Jersey? (Puma concolor)
Due to the fact that they live over a wide geographical area, mountain lions have a long list of regional names. In recent years, their scientific name was even changed from Felis concolor to Puma concolor. Some common names that mountain lions go by are cougar, panther painter, Andean Mountain lion, and puma.
Where are mountain lions typically found?
Mountain lions live on all three of the American continents. Their range begins in Canada’s Yukon territory and extends south through parts of North America, Central America, and South America to the southern tip of Argentina.
In Canada, the biggest populations of them are in British Columbia and Alberta. On the other hand, in the United States, they mainly live in the western united states and Florida in the southeast. In Florida, the cougar is called the Florida panther.
What do mountain lions look like?
To visualize what a mountain lion looks like, picture a giant house cat with short, light brown fur. Mountain lions are much larger than domestic cats, though. Average house cats weigh in at around 10 pounds, while male mountain lions can weigh over 200 pounds.
These large cats have muscular slender bodies, rounded small heads, and upright ears that are oval at the tip. Another characteristic that mountain lions have is their muscular long tails, which account for almost one-third of the entire length of the animal. They use their long tail for a counterbalance, moving it from side to side as they navigate through uneven terrain.
Mountain lions have a tan coat of short, coarse hair over 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, below their lower lip, and their chin are all white. They also have a sprinkling of dark hair on their backs. There are some coat color variances between different geographic locations.
Mountain lions are the second largest cat in the western hemisphere, smaller only than the Jaguar (Panthera onca). However, worldwide, the African Lion, ((Panthera leo) and the Tiger (Panthera tigris) are also larger.
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 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 a length of 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 to 7 feet long (1.5 to 2.1 M).
Large cats but not big cats
A fun fact is that despite their large size, mountain lions are not taxonomically classified as a big cat because they cannot roar. Snow 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, while big cats that cannot purr and can roar are in the Panthera genus.
As of the year 2017, mountain lions are taxonomically divided into 2 sub-species. The first is (Puma concolor couguar) or northern cougar. Northern cougars range through North America, Central America, and possibly northwestern South America. The second sub-species is (Puma concolor concolor) or southern cougar. These cats range only in South America.
What do mountain lions eat?
Mountain lions account for around 18 pounds of biomass and consume around 10 pounds of meat per day. To do this, an adult mountain lion has to kill a deer or a deer’s equivalent in meat around once a week. A mountain lion’s preferred prey is deer. However, they also prey on other animals.
In New Jersey, mountain lions would prey on white-tailed deer, coyotes, raccoons, rabbits, wild turkeys, miscellaneous birds, pack rats, various small rodents, prairie dogs, porcupines, skunks, snakes, pets, stray cats, livestock, and any other native wild animals they can catch.
Mountain lions sighted in New Jersey
New Jersey residents from all across the state have been reporting cougar sightings. These reports have come from Camden, Atlantic, and Sussex counties, as well as points in between. However, officials from New Jersey’s state Division of Fish and Wildlife say that the big cats do not exist in New Jersey.
Possible explanations for New Jersey mountain lion sightings are mistaken identity, sightings of escaped captive animals, and sightings of young mountain lions that have originated from established breeding cougar populations in the western U.S.
A famous example of this happened in 2011 when a male mountain lion traveled over 1500 miles from South Dakota to be struck by a car and killed in Connecticut. See
