Kentucky’s 169 bobcat records reach from the wooded ridges of the east to Land Between the Lakes in the far west, and the single largest concentration, Fayette County’s 61, sits right in the state’s second-largest metro area.
Wooded corridors through a farmed state
Bobcats declined across Kentucky as the land was cleared, but they never fully left the rougher country, and they have been expanding again for decades. The record shows where their cover persists: the Cumberland Plateau forests of Daniel Boone National Forest and McCreary and Pike counties, the karst woodlands around Mammoth Cave National Park, Pennyrile State Forest in the west, and the big unbroken woods of Land Between the Lakes. Between those blocks the cat travels wooded river corridors and brushy fencerows, which is how a secretive animal turns up on the edge of Lexington. It hunts rabbits and rodents by stealth at dawn, dusk, and overnight, and most Kentuckians in occupied country never see one.
Summer kittens, winter courtship
Reports crest twice, in June and July and again in December and January. The winter rise is breeding season, when males roam far beyond their usual circuits. The summer one is family life: kittens born in spring leave the den after a couple of months and begin following their mother on hunts, putting more cats in motion across the landscape.
Status in Kentucky
NatureServe ranks the bobcat S4, Apparently Secure, in Kentucky, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
