Once eradicated from Rhode Island, bobcats have returned over the past few decades and are now being spotted more frequently. A new program was created to track their movements.

The Rhode Island Bobcat Project, led by researchers at the University of Rhode Island in collaboration with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, the Wildlife Clinic of Rhode Island, and local land trusts, is designed to support bobcat conservation, promote public understanding of their important ecological role, and provide critical data to inform wildlife management and biodiversity conservation.

Bobcats are elusive and require extensive work to monitor. To do that work, the research team has launched a three-pronged approach: camera traps, collaring bobcats with GPS units, and citizen science data. For the latter, Rhode Island residents are encouraged to report sightings and submit photographs to help researchers better understand the animals’ movement patterns, habitat use, and population dynamics. The reporting form will be open indefinitely.

The project was inspired by camera trap studies conducted from 2018 to 2023 that found species such as fishers and foxes appear to be in decline, raising concerns about environmental changes, diseases, and rodenticide exposure. However, the same study indicated that bobcat populations are stable or increasing.

Kathleen Carroll, assistant professor of applied quantitative ecology, and Christopher Hickling, a Ph.D. student in natural resources science, note that bobcats’ increasing presence in the state is positive.

“Their presence on the landscape tells us that we’re doing something right,” Hickling said, “because they wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t high biodiversity at lower trophic levels.”

Bobcats play a critical ecological role in an ecosystem lacking apex predators such as wolves and cougars, especially as other species like fishers and foxes decline, because they offer services such as rodent control and disease suppression. While bobcats tend to avoid human interaction, their flexibility and generalist nature has likely allowed them to adapt better than other carnivores to human-dominated landscapes. Understanding their resilience is vital in a changing natural environment.

“We want people to be excited about seeing bobcats and to understand their importance for biodiversity,” Carroll said. “Tracking them helps us identify broad implications for supporting bobcat populations.”

For the project’s QR code, click here.