Rascal

Rascal

18×24 colored pencil. The original is available. Please contact me for further information.
The Bobcat (Lynx rufus), occasionally known as the Bay Lynx, is a North American mammal of the cat family, Felidae. With twelve recognized subspecies, it ranges from southern Canada to northern Mexico, including much of the continental United States. The Bobcat is an adaptable predator that inhabits wooded areas, as well as semi-desert, urban edge, and swampland environments. It persists in much of its original range and populations are healthy.

With a gray to brown coat, whiskered face, and black-tufted ears, the Bobcat resembles the other species of the mid-sized Lynx genus. It is smaller than the Canadian Lynx, with whom it shares parts of its range, but about twice as large as the domestic cat. It has distinctive black bars on its forelegs and a black-tipped, stubby tail, from which it derives its name.

The Bobcat has been subject to extensive hunting by humans, both for sport and fur, but its population has proven resilient. The elusive predator was featured in Native American mythology and the folklore of European settlers.

The Bobcat is believed to have evolved from the Eurasian Lynx, which crossed into North America by way of the Bering land bridge during the Pleistocene, with progenitors arriving as much as 2.6 Ma. The first wave moved into the southern portion of North America, which was soon cut off from the north by glaciers. This population evolved into modern Bobcats around 20,000 years ago. A second population arrived from Asia and settled in the north, creating the modern Canadian Lynx. Hybridization with the Canadian Lynx may sometimes occur .

The Bobcat is listed in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which means it is not considered threatened with extinction but that hunting and trading must be closely monitored. The animal is regulated in all three of its range countries and it is found in a number of protected areas of the United States, its principal territory. Estimates from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service placed Bobcat numbers between 700,000 and 1,500,000 in the U.S. in 1988, with increased range and population density suggesting even greater numbers in subsequent years; for these reasons, the U.S. has petitioned CITES to remove the cat from Appendix II. Populations in Canada and Mexico remain stable and healthy. The IUCN lists it as a species of “least concern,” noting that it is relatively widespread and abundant but that information from southern Mexico is poor.

Though the Bobcat once inhabited all of the American Midwest, they are now extirpated in much of the region, a result of man-made habitat changes. Today the species is considered endangered in Ohio, Indiana, and Iowa. It was removed from the threatened list of Illinois in 1999, and in Pennsylvania limited hunting and trapping is once again allowed, after having been banned from 1970 to 1999. The Bobcat also suffered population declines in New Jersey at the turn of the nineteenth century, mainly because of commercial and agricultural developments causing habitat fragmentation; by 1972, the Bobcat was given full legal protection, and listed as endangered in the state in 1991. L. rufus escuinipae, the subspecies found in Mexico, was for a time considered endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but was delisted in 2005. (info from Wikipedia)

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