Wyoming’s 486 bobcat records span 22 counties, with the heaviest counts not in the famous parks but in the state’s broken midsection: Laramie, Natrona, Big Horn, Fremont, and Sweetwater counties lead, while Yellowstone National Park tops the named places with 11.
Rimrock country over high peaks
Wyoming’s record belongs to the benches and breaks, not the alpine. The cat of this state dens in rock crevices and canyon rims and hunts rabbits, hares, and rodents along pinyon-juniper slopes, badland edges, and cottonwood bottoms, with Yellowstone National Park, Bighorn National Forest, and the Gros Ventre Wilderness marking the wilder end of its range. It is the most widespread wild cat in North America precisely because of this flexibility, and its stealth matches its adaptability. Most Wyomingites who ranch, hunt, or hike in bobcat country have never seen one; the cat sees them first and slips away.
February writes itself in snow
The monthly counts spike harder here than in most states: 195 records in February and 82 in January against single digits through summer and fall. Wyoming’s snowpack explains the shape of that curve. A bobcat crossing a drifted two-track or a canyon floor leaves a track line that persists for days, and late winter is breeding season, when cats travel farther and move more by daylight. The quiet summer counts are the same cats, hidden by grass and working the hours of darkness.
Status in Wyoming
NatureServe ranks the bobcat S5, Secure, in Wyoming, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
