Louisiana’s 229 bobcat records spread from East Baton Rouge Parish’s 32 west to Cameron and Calcasieu on the coastal plain and north to Bossier and Caddo along the Texas line, a map as wet and varied as the state itself.
A cat that takes to the swamp
The bobcat may be the most water-tolerant wild cat in North America. It swims readily, and Louisiana’s bottomland hardwoods, cypress breaks, and marsh edges suit it as long as it can find slightly higher, drier ground to rest and den. Records from the Atchafalaya Basin country around Sherburne Wildlife Management Area, the longleaf pine uplands of Kisatchie National Forest, and the coastal marshes of Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge span that range of cover. Along levees, ridges, and spoil banks it hunts rabbits, rats, and birds by stealth, mostly between dusk and dawn, and even in the basin’s best habitat most people never see one.
An April crest in a year-round climate
Reports arrive in every month, with April the strongest. Louisiana’s mild winters keep the cat on the move year-round; courtship and mating still peak in late winter, and by April the year’s first kittens are denning in thickets and hollow logs while breeding-season wanderers finish their circuits. Tracks in the mud of a quiet woods road are the encounter most people actually get.
Status in Louisiana
NatureServe ranks the bobcat S4, Apparently Secure, in Louisiana, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
