The West Virginia DNR is currently doing this study. Pretty neat!

https://www.williamsondailynews.com/feat...1c10625b30.html

You guys have heard me talk about my buddy Skiddy before. Back around Christmas, when Skiddy's son Branson was out of school, they set out a small trap line.

It would have been December 23rd, they made 7 sets. The first check, Christmas Eve, they had 2 bobcats, a red fox, and deer had fired 2. Five out of 7 traps fired, very good average!

Anyway, they called the DNR, Skiddy, his dad Dorm, and Branson met up with Biologist Rich Rogers here at the store. Rogers didn't have any collars on hand, Christmas was the next day, so they put the biggest cat in a cage, and Rogers took it back to the office. The other bobcat was too small to put a collar on, so they turned it loose.

There is a fine line, where the cat needs to be in good shape, no foot damage or anything. Like the small, it's going to grow, so it wasn't suitable.

The day after Christmas, Rogers and Ms. Belcher returned with the bobcat, met Skiddy and Branson where they'd caught the bobcat. Got him all collared up, named him Clark and cut him in the wind.

Not sure if this is supposed to be public information or not? But the lady sent Skiddy a map of where the bobcat had been, Skiddy sent it to me. The map is on Google Earth, I looked it over good. Skiddy called me later, and I told him, Ole Clark is very close to my cameras.

My girlfriend went up with me the other day, we checked cameras #2 and #3. We had a good tracking snow, we broke track from the turnoff. Sure enough, I've got the bobcat on camera #2. My "lured rock" camera!

Honestly, I was thinking about setting some snares on the mountain, not now! That would hurt me and break Branson's heart, if I'd find Clark tangled up dead. Wearing that collar for a month, it's fur isn't worth anything. Nobody would want it mounted with a ring around it's neck.

The bobcat is worth more to me, just getting pictures! I do have some very good pictures of it. One picture of Clark, hunkered down, about 4 feet from a big coon. The coon looks like it's ready for action too! From what my girlfriend and I could read from the snow, the coon got away.

From what I can make from the map of it's travels, it looks like it's home area is 10 or 12 square miles. I'm looking forward to the next update!

That’s awesome, Tim. I had not heard of that study yet. A few years ago, WVU was taking bobcat carcasses to study how many litters of kittens they had. They were giving you a $20 gift card for the carcass and you were allowed to keep the fur. Keep us posted, I would like to know what kind of area it is traveling too.

Is there a website we can go to that shows us where the cats have been?

I don't know of a website. Skiddy first told me that the DNR would give him an "app", so he could track the bobcat (Clark), so far he's only received the one map.

These maps must not be top secret, a man who owns property on the Grant/Pendleton co line, he has 2 bobcats, with GPS collars on or near his property. I've met the man, I don't know him, but he sent a copy of his map to one of my friends, she showed it to me.

One reason that I doubt if the DNR would make a website with the actual locations, around here, pretty much everything is private land. I'm sure at some point, they will come out with an average "home range".

The map is kind of hard to explain. If the collar sends out a "ping" every 5 hours, there are places where the bobcat moved less than 1/4 mile in 10 hours. And other places where it's moved over 3 miles, between pings. That's air miles.

I'm not sure how this will work, but I'll post it. We have had a good discussion on facebook. The folks doing the study are there, answering questions. You may need to be logged on to facebook to see it.

Does the facebook link work for everyone else? I'm on my work computer, it does for me. I did need to sign in on facebook.

If you look at the second post on that link, dated 1/24/19, the one with a map of the eastern panhandle of WV, click on that map. There are several more pictures, and there are 2 or 3 of their actual travels.

Thanks, Tim. I don’t have Facebook, but I will have my wife try to look it up on her account for me. She is at her moms house for the weekend, but she will be back on Monday.

Above is the bobcat named Clark. Sorry, I don't have the pictures in order, if you can read the sign, that is a coyote track in the right tire track, it's been snowed in. But that's what it is.




That's my girlfriend and I trying to make heads or tails of what happened. As you can see, I botched up the tracks before we got out to look.