Is there really a point to hunting bobcats?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was looking at YouTube videos of people hunting and killing bobcats. There’s not a problem with hunting for food or pest control, and my father was an avid hunter, but 99% of the time it was game hunting. The only non-game prey he took was a tiger while in India in the 50’s, and I doubt he would do that if he knew the tiger’s precarious situation today as he was extremely conservation minded.

Is there really a point to hunting bobcats? You’re not going to eat them, and they are useful predators. It just seems kind of … I don’t know… bad form or something.

2

Rest assured, that bobcat would shoot you if it had opposable thumbs.

And a gun.

3

The pelts are worth a little something if intact and in good shape ( which is usually going to require trapping ), but otherwise I imagine it is pure sport hunting.

While I won’t out and out denigrate that, I don’t really see the point in most predator hunting, with the exception of safety and possibly culling for necessary population control, something that really shouldn’t be much of an issue with bobcats. I’d much rather shoot something I could actually eat.

4

Well, my sister feeds the meat to her dogs, so it’s not like they’re totally worthless.

5

Hunting Bobcats? Is there anything John Deere won’t do to increase their skid-steer market share?

6

Even if you don’t like Bob Dylan, that’s still no reason to go hunting his fans!

7

There are 3 ways to “hunt” bobcat.

  1. One is with dogs, which really is not “hunting”, it is just following your dogs until it is treed and then shooting it out of a tree. …and yeah, there is not much point to it, nor any sport, nor any challange, and it is NOT “hunting”.

  2. Two is to use a predator call, but that is really having the bobcat hunt YOU, not the other way around.

  3. Three, is the actual (and only ) version of “hunting of bobcats”, which is the OP. This actually involves skill, lots and lots of time spent in nature, really learning and knowing all about bobcats and their behavior, and walking thru the woods until you find one. This type of hunting very rarely involves actually shooting a bobcat, since you will go for years and years and years without seeing one. I have only seen 3 in the forest, in my entire life, and I did not shoot any of them. So, the “hunting of bobcat” is really a sport which involves being in the woods for years and years and years with a gun , and probably, most likely, not ever really shooting any animal at all the entire time. Rather innocuous I would say.

8

Interesting.

9

Good for you, susanann.

These are wonderful and beautiful little beasts (we have many that walk by our house). They do no harm, are not fit for human consumption, and are valuable in cutting down the rodent and rabbit population. Why in hell anybody would want to kill them is beyond me.

I hunted deer, rabbits, birds for years for food, but killing non-threatening and beautiful critters is a crying shame.

If you mut hunt them, do what susanann does, but carry a camera rather than a gun. Then if you ever do see one in the wild, you will have great pictures to show others.

And should want to try and see the elusive mountain lion in the wild, carry a camera too, but also a gun. Just in case.

10

I’ve always said I’d enjoy hunting but would probably never get around to shooting anything. :slight_smile:

11

What do you mean not fit for human consumption, I’ve eaten them and it did no harm, they are actually pretty tasty.

12

I imagine because it’s fun and challenging. It’s also a form of population control of a prey animal.

Using dogs and calling are legitimate forms of hunting. They have been since domestication of the dog and since man began hunting for food. Spot and stalk has never been a widely used or successful method of predator hunting.

Not everyone is animal rights extremist or a self-righteous, hypocritical food hunter.

13

Well, I do carry a gun, I just didnt want to shoot a bobcat. They are pretty rare around me, most people never see a wild bobcat in the woods. Ive only seen 3 bobcat in my life in the wild, only 3 mountain lion in the wild, and only 1 wolf, and didnt really want to shoot any of them.

I hunt, but I dont think a bobcat would taste very good, and I am not interested enough to try it, and they don’t bother me.

Deer, pheasant, rabbits, squirrels, not only taste good, but they are generally a nuisance.

I always told my kids, that if they shoot an animal, no matter what it is, they had to eat it. (We had porcupine for dinner once).

Some animals I would never want to kill unless I had to, just because I don’t want to. I would not want to shoot an elephant. I wonder how much meat off an elephant, rhino, zebra, etc that people actually eat after killing them? What do people do with all the meat from an elephant that they killed?