When a bobcat mother appeared in a couple’s backyard in Tucson, Arizona, the wife was thrilled, but her husband, “not so much.” After receiving a call from the couple, Cheryl Mollohan arrived to see the mother stretched out on top of a storage container. In a hole below, a tiny kitten.
Mollohan, a TWS member and the lead biologist for the Bobcats in Tucson Research Project, had been working on uncovering information about how the wild cats were living in a busy city. Were their populations doing OK? And how were anthropogenic factors like roads affecting them?
She reassured the couple that bobcats (Lynx rufus) don’t stick around for long. The pair would likely be on its way in two to four weeks, when the kitten was old enough to travel. Although the husband was still skeptical, he enjoyed seeing the female and kitten photos from trail cameras placed in the backyard.
Three weeks later, a follow-up call from the homeowners revealed the bobcats had left. By that time, the husband wondered whether they would be back—he’d come to enjoy seeing the species in his backyard.
Mollohan came across people learning to coexist with bobcats often during her work on the Tucson bobcat project. While human dimensions was one part of the project, she and her colleagues were also interested in learning more about how the felines persist in the city.
A knowledgeable bunch
Mollohan got the idea to conduct the Bobcats in Tucson Research Project when she ran into a colleague in 2009 doing public outreach on Tucson bobcats. Her friend had developed a website where people could record sightings and communicate with her. “She told me about that population, and it just stuck in my head what a unique situation was happening in Tucson,” Mollohan said.
Mollohan had gone to school at Arizona State University and worked for the Arizona Game and Fish Department but had moved to Ohio decades prior. In 2018, she moved back to Arizona in hopes of being able to study Tucson’s urban bobcat population. She reached out to colleagues she had worked with in the past and came up with a team of five wildlife biologists: Kerry Baldwin, Al LeCount, Ron Day, David Brown and herself, all retired from the Arizona Game and Fish Department. Together, they brought over 125 years of agency experience and over 150 years of experience as wildlife professionals to the project.
Working with retired volunteers had great benefits. Each person brought unique skills and perspectives to the project, including extensive experience in animal capture and research, human dimensions and carnivore management. Unfortunately, two of the original five team members on the project—Kerry Baldwin and David Brown—died during the four-year study.
The team got a small grant from the Arizona Game and Fish Department Heritage Program and set up an online platform where people could report bobcat sightings. At the same time, they began capturing and satellite radio collaring urban bobcats in Tucson, often capturing resident bobcats at homes in neighborhoods.
Over the three years of capture work, the team caught 56 different bobcats and radio collared 38. When a citizen scientist sent in a sighting of a bobcat, the team sent them information about the study and a map personalized to their locations showing radioed and citizen-reported bobcat locations. Over the course of the study, Tucson residents recorded 1,400 bobcat sightings.
The research team involved other volunteer team members, including a GIS specialist, veterinarians who assisted at every capture and handling and a photographer. Another volunteer scoured social media and monitored a neighborhood app to see when and where bobcats were reported and responded to concerns and issues.
“This project was easily as much about people as it was about bobcats,” Mollohan said. “I think the strength of this project was that we were all very committed to transparency and providing information throughout the course of the study, not just at the conclusion. It became very personal for a lot of people because there was so much public involvement.”
The public connection
It was 2020 when Mollohan and her colleagues began collecting their data—right when the global COVID-19 pandemic hit. Originally, the team was going to knock on people’s doors in the neighborhoods where collared bobcats appeared, but that wasn’t an option. Instead, they developed a website that ended up being their contact point with the public.
Throughout the four years of the study, members of the public often made a strong connection with the felines. One homeowner named a bobcat Cynthia after her mother because the animal was caught where she laid her mom’s ashes. Her mother had been the one to get her interested in wildlife in the first place. “I think sometimes we get lost in trying to be scientists, and there’s always a balance point. You always have to do good science. But there’s nothing wrong with it becoming personal either,” Mollohan said.
The findings
When the team reviewed their data, they found some exciting information about the city cats. “It appeared they were widespread over a huge area,” she said. What touched Mollohan the most was that when kittens were big enough, females would choose people’s backyards to raise them. They liked yards without dogs but with high walls, trees and vegetation, bird feeders and water. “To me, it was just amazing that she would choose that situation so close to people, when she was at her most vulnerable, to raise kittens,” Mollohan said.
From a scientific standpoint, Mollohan said one of the most interesting findings was that several bobcat mothers and adult daughters shared home ranges. That was surprising because bobcats are thought to be solitary as adults. “It’s neat to contribute something to our knowledge of a species, and we were able to do that,” she said.
The human dimensions side also showed some interesting findings. The team added a survey to their website for participants to answer questions about their feelings toward having bobcats living in their neighborhoods. While the survey was not randomized or scientifically rigorous, they found overall positive attitudes toward the species.
Another interesting finding was that females often returned to the same houses year after year to raise their kittens. Many homeowners welcomed this experience.
“If you can just give her that space for the time she needs, the reward that’s going to come back to you is amazing, because you’re going to see things none of us ever get to see,” Mollohan said.
For more information on the Bobcats in Tucson Research Project and to download the final report and abbreviated public report, visit bobcatsintucson.net.
