Winter Relations of Bobcats to White-Tailed Deer in Maine

Abstract

given very little credence. The present trend apparently is to consider the species an unimportant enemy of deer. Food habit studies in Michigan by Dearborn (1932) and Stebler (1940) and in California by Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1937) have not shown the bobcat to be a serious deer predator. Hamilton and Hunter (1939) studied 140 Vermont bobcat stomachs and found that more deer flesh had been eaten than any other kind, but, lacking sufficient information on actual bobcatdeer relationships, they were inclined to believe that most of the material was carrion from wounded deer left to die in the woods. Young (1928), Newsom (1930), and Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1937) cite scattered instances of bobcats being known to kill deer, four specific cases being recorded. Observations reported below show that deer losses are more frequent than is commonly thought. During the winters of 1939-40 and 1940-41, in conjunction with a study of winter deer behavior, I had many opportunities to observe the winter habits of bobcats in relation to deer in a section of Maine where deer are abundant and the cats are at least common, namely, northern Franklin and western Somerset counties. The State Game Wardens there are intensely interested in the problem and helped to locate bobcat tracks and deer kills, finding, in fact, more kills than the writer was able to visit. These men, Wardens of Division L, first brought the matter to my attention and I wish to acknowledge the valuable aid given by Chief Warden Roy Gray and Deputies Earland Winter, Helon N. Taylor, Norman Buck, Frank Phillips, and Alston Robinson.