Passport to Texas

A large and lovely bobcat.

Cool Cats -- Bobcats Roaming Urban Areas Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Bobcats thrive in urban areas of Texas. Twice as large as domestic cats, this relative of the lynx is secretive.

If someone comes across a bobcat, take a moment to enjoy the opportunity that you see this secretive, shy animal.

Richard Heilbrun is the conservation outreach leader for Texas Parks and Wildlife.

We did an urban bobcat research project in Dallas-Fort Worth, and we had high numbers of bobcats thriving in the Trinity River corridor, because there’s good, functioning, healthy, ecosystem.

Urban bobcats perform an ecosystem function that most folks don’t realize.

We just completed a research project on diet of urban bobcats in the Dallas-Fort Worth area by looking at their scat. Which is their droppings. And, it looks like urban bobcats in that area, rely on rodents for about 65 percent of their diet. If you tease apart the data just a little bit more, fifty percent of their diet is non-native urban rats. So, they’re really performing an ecosystem function for us by consuming these rats that, biologically, shouldn’t be there anyway. So, we’re taking a negative—these nonnative rats—and we’re feeding them to a native predator that should be there, and is adding value to our ecosystem.

Learn more about urban wildlife on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Wildlife restoration program supports our series and funds research on the ecology of urban bobcats in DFW.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Bobcats serve an ecosystem function.

Urban Bobcats--Big Kitties in the Cities Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

You might be surprised to learn that wildlife is all around. Even in large Texas cities.

Bobcats thrive very well in urban areas. They’re extraordinarily adaptive.

Richard Heilbrun is the conservation outreach leader for Texas Parks and Wildlife. He says bobcats can find everything they need to survive in cities.

And so they will use the greenbelts and the city parks and the rivers and the creeks that run through our cities as travel corridors. And in those habitats, those greenbelts, they’ll find the rats and the snakes and the mice and the birds necessary for them to thrive.

It’s rare to see an urban bobcat. But it does happen; when it does, Richard says reactions vary.

People have all sorts of reactions to bobcats. Some are excited. Some are worried. Some are nervous for the bobcat. Some think that it wound up there by mistake. And other people are afraid, because they don’t know how bobcats act. And so they’re coming to us with a wide range of questions, preconception, or ideas about outcomes that they think should happen. And we get to help them navigate whatever reaction they have into a solution that’s good for the bobcat and good for the people.

What you should know about urban bobcats. That’s tomorrow.

The Wildlife restoration program supports our series and funds research on the ecology of urban bobcats in DFW.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.