With 19,587 records spread across all 58 counties, the bobcat is among the most thoroughly documented wild mammals in California. San Diego County alone contributes more than 3,000, and the map runs unbroken from the North Coast to the Mexican line.
From sea level to the high desert
Few California mammals use as much of the state. The record runs through the chaparral of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and Cleveland National Forest, the coastal scrub of Point Reyes National Seashore and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the oak woodland of Henry W. Coe and Mount Diablo state parks, and the forests of Yosemite, and it reaches the dry end of the state in the rocky canyons and creosote flats of Death Valley, Joshua Tree, and the Mojave National Preserve. What a bobcat needs is not wilderness but cover, prey, and a quiet place to den, and California supplies those in deserts, foothills, and coastal hills alike.
A neighbor almost nobody meets
The county list shows how close this cat lives to people: Los Angeles, Marin, Santa Clara, and San Mateo all sit near the top of the record. Bobcats work the wildland edge of California’s metro areas on a dawn-and-dusk schedule, resting out of sight by day, so even where they are common, most residents never see one. Reports crest in January, the height of the breeding season, when males roam far beyond their usual circuits. A cat surprised in the open almost always melts back into cover; it wants nothing to do with people.
Status in California
NatureServe lists the bobcat SNR, Unranked, for California, while ranking the species G5, Secure, globally. The cat is native to the state, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
