Natural History

Posted in wildlife | Tagged bobcat, white-tailed deer | 9 Comments

9 Responses

1. on November 13, 2010 at 11:36 am retrieverman

   According to an examination of bobcats harvested in West Virginia’s 1977-78 hunting/trapping season, the most common prey species in their stomach contents was white-tailed deer:

   
   
2. on November 13, 2010 at 8:47 pm Suzanne

   A pair of bobcats took down a young black tail deer on my parents’ property a few years ago. They then dragged it to the property line and started eating it alive. The neighbor couldn’t stand the deer’s screams so he chased the cats off and shot it. Don’t worry, though; they came back a few hours later and finished their meal.

   
   
3. on November 14, 2010 at 11:27 am Lane Batot

   From what I’ve read, it seems some bobcats in some areas become specialists in killing deer, and this includes adult whitetails, not just fawns or young deer! There is a neat old illustration of a bobcat riding a deer’s back in some early explorer’s account–can’t recall where exactly(John White, maybe? John Lawson?), but I’ve seen it many times–so this was known even way back then. Yet in some areas, the bobcats never seem to bother deer. I have heard of quite a few people who have lost sheep and goats to bobcats, and apparently caracals(a lynxlike relative of bobcats around the same size) in Africa take sheep and goats regularly too(as well as small antelope).

   
   
   • on November 14, 2010 at 11:33 am retrieverman

     Check this out:

     http://www.prairiestateoutdoors.com/index.php?/scattershooting/article/do_bobcats_kill_deer

     
     
4. on June 8, 2011 at 6:31 pm logan silvey

   probubly not.a bocat is slightly bigger than a house cat.how could something like that take down a 500lb animal? maybe if it was a fawn or crippled,but other than that its probubly impossible.

   
   
   • on June 8, 2011 at 6:39 pm retrieverman

     White-tailed deer are not normally that big. 250-300 pounds is a big buck, and most does are significantly smaller than that.

     A 200 pound cougar can kill a 700 pound elk/wapiti.

     And the Canada lynx, which isn’t much larger, in terms of weight, can take down a caribou.

     I like the way you poo-pooed all the evidence in this post without looking at it.

     Great form.

     In my state, West Virginia, the white-tailed deer is the primary food source for the bobcat, and a 25-30 pound mature tom can kill a doe.

     They are not slightly bigger than house cats. Only the smallest queens get into house cat size. The biggest bobcat on record was 48 pounds and was killed in Minnesota or Wisconsin.

     
     
   • on June 8, 2011 at 6:44 pm retrieverman

     http://www.23mm.com/deer/bobcat.cfm

     Any questions?

     
     
5. on June 8, 2011 at 6:48 pm Dave

   Scottie’s right. Most white-tails are in the plus hundred pounds range. More than two hundred is huge. Black-tails are significantly larger, but nowhere near half a ton. Perhaps you were thinking of them?

   It’s like those black bear stories, everyone talks about the eight-feet, a ton bear; when the trth is closer to 5′, 200 pounds or so.

   
   
6. on November 29, 2011 at 12:18 am Bobcat kills mule deer « Retrieverman's Weblog

   […] Can a bobcat kill a deer? […]

   
   

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