After decades on the endangered list, bobcats are back on the rebound in Indiana. The population is believed to have recovered to the extent that the state’s wildlife authorities are now confirming a trapping and snaring season will run in the fall of 2025, targeting the state’s only wild cat species.
Bobcats, the smallest members of the lynx family, are found from Mexico all the way to southern Canada, and are generally not considered endangered; they have an IUCN rating of “Least Concern.” But in some regions, bobcats are few and far between due to over-hunting, loss of habitat and other factors. Indiana was one of those regions, where local fish-and-game authorities declared them endangered from 1969 through 2005.
Bobcats were once considered endangered in Indiana.
Since the population rebounded, many trappers believe numbers have been growing and ever since 2016, there have been discussions about starting up a trapping season for these wild cats. The Department of Natural Resources was moving very slowly on the issue, so in 2024, State Sen. Scott Baldwin introduced a bill that forced Indiana’s DNR to institute a bobcat trapping season.
Under the new rules, bobcats may be trapped or snared in 40 counties of Indiana, all in the southern end of the state. Trappers have a personal quote of a single bobcat apiece; overall, the season will be capped at only 250 bobcats. Indiana opens bobcat season in November and will run it through January, and trappers will be allowed to sell parts of the animals they trap.
Bobcat hunting may be allowed in the future, depending on how the trapping season impacts the population.
These restrictions were the idea of DNR. Wildlife officials did not present any data on bobcat population numbers when they were debating hunting seasons on the cats. This was their reasoning when, in 2018, the department decided not to go ahead with a bobcat hunt; at that time, they said they didn’t have the data to determine whether the population could sustain a hunt.
Animal rights organizations opposed the idea of the hunt, and also opposed the snaring and trapping season, saying there wasn’t enough information on the population, but an Indiana DNR official said the seasonal quota was conservative; down the road, a hunting season may also open for bobcats, but the department will not allow the population to become endangered.
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