Bobcat trapping season begins Saturday for 40 Indiana counties. The season lasts until Jan. 31 or until a quota of 250 is met. Licensed trappers will be limited to one bobcat per person.
The counties open for bobcat trapping are mainly in the southern region of the state including Monroe, Brown, Morgan and Orange counties.
A state law that passed in 2024 required the Indiana Department of Natural Resources to establish a bobcat harvest season. In years prior, proposals were made to allow a bobcat harvest season which sparked controversy and delayed decisions. Bobcats were considered an endangered species until 2005.
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This is Indiana’s first regulated bobcat harvest season, said Geriann Albers, DNR’s furbearer and game bird program leader.
This season is not about reducing the population but a way for the DNR to offer an outdoor activity, as with wild turkey or white-tailed deer.
“We feel bobcats are doing really well, Albers said. “We feel like this will be sustainable, and it's an opportunity we could offer without negatively impacting the populations. And we're really trying to balance so people can enjoy bobcats in whatever way that they choose to.”
Bobcats are more prominent in the southern counties because their expansion came from states south of Indiana, Albers said. The southern counties offer bobcats forest habitats, which they are fond of, but they are expanding north as they tend to follow waterways.
This season is only for trapping with hunting prohibited. Trapping is a more cautious start with low quotas and bag limits. And, there are fewer trappers than hunters. It also allows room for growth and possibly adding bobcat hunting in the future, she said. Footholds, cage traps and cable devices are devices allowed for bobcat trapping.
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“I know there are a lot of people who are worried that, you know, we're going to drive bobcats back to extinction and things like that, but that is absolutely not what we want,” she said. “We care about bobcats. We want bobcats to thrive in Indiana. We think this season is very conservative and allows bobcats to still be very present on the landscape.”
Individuals will not only need a trapping license to set traps but a bobcat license to harvest a bobcat as well. Licenses can be purchased through the DNR while the season is open. As of Tuesday, 869 bobcat licenses have been sold, Albers said.
Trappers will also need to ensure the bobcat they harvest is properly tagged to make it legal. Bobcats are on the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species list, Albers said. They are not endangered but they look like species that are endangered internationally.
“There is a requirement that they have to get a tag to prove that it's a legally harvested North American Bobcat for it to then go on the international market, to ensure that it's not one of those endangered species like an Iberian lynx,” she said.
