Bobcat season is coming to Indiana after a crucial Tuesday vote. Photo from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

By Niki Kelly
Indiana Capital Chronicle

INDIANAPOLIS — After receiving more than 3,000 public comments, Indiana’s Natural Resources Commission on Tuesday, March 18 approved a bobcat trapping season in 40 southern Indiana counties.

The vote tally was not announced at the meeting but wasn’t unanimous.

There will be a statewide harvest, capped at 250 bobcats, allowing licensed trappers to take one bobcat per season and sell the hide. The season will begin Satuday, Nov. 8. Trappers can use a cage trap, foothold trap types permitted under law or a snare with a relaxing snare lock.

Lawmakers mandated that the Indiana Department of Natural Resources establish a bobcat trapping season in 2024 legislation.

DNR gathered data before proposing specific rules. Project head Geriann Albers said the agency worked to procure data on bobcat populations, including by having Purdue University create a population model.

“Bobcats are important to us. We have a strong foundation and plans for the future to keep monitoring them because they are important to Indiana,” Albers said.

DNR also held several public hearings on its plans and took written comments.

Aaron Bonar, an administrative law judge for the commission, acknowledged that the majority of public comments were against the proposal and many sought to establish a zero bag limit. But he said that wouldn’t be in compliance with the Indiana General Assembly’s mandate.

While before a House committee in February last year, bobcat season author Sen. Scott Baldwin said the bag limit would be driven by science.

“DNR’s process could very well result in season one (having) zero bobcats allowed to be taken. That’s very much a possibility. If science dictates, season one may not allow the taking of any bobcats,” Baldwin said. “All this bill says is: establish a season, start the process and figure it out.”

Once an endangered species in Indiana, bobcats were removed from the state’s endangered species list in 2005.

Since then, the bobcat population has grown — especially in recent years, according to DNR.

Samantha Chapman, Indiana state director at Humane World for Animals, said it was a “sad day” for wildlife conservation in Indiana.

“The Natural Resources Commission’s decision to green-light the trapping and killing of 250 of Indiana’s recovering bobcats — when there is still no adequate population data and no scientific evidence to justify killing hundreds of bobcats — contradicts ethical and science-based wildlife conservation,” she said in a news release. “This instead favors a tiny special interest group who wish to profit off Indiana’s wildlife by selling bobcat furs to overseas markets.”

The counties where bobcat trapping will be allowed are Bartholomew, Brown, Clark, Clay, Crawford, Daviess, Dearborn, Dubois, Floyd, Franklin, Gibson, Greene, Harrison, Jackson, Jefferson, Jennings, Johnson, Knox, Lawrence, Martin, Monroe, Morgan, Ohio, Orange, Owen, Parke, Perry, Pike, Posey, Putnam, Ripley, Scott, Spencer, Sullivan, Switzerland, Vanderburgh, Vermillion, Vigo, Warrick and Washington.