Are New Hampshire’s Bobcats Well-Connected?

DURHAM, NH — New Hampshire is a pretty good place to live if you are a bobcat. And understanding how well bobcats move around the state within different habitats – called landscape connectivity – is critical to managing the state’s wildlife resources over the long term.

University of New Hampshire researchers recently compared two different methods to assess how well connected the landscape is for bobcats across the state, according to a press statement. The research was supported by the NH Agricultural Experiment Station, NH Department of Fish and Game, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program.

“Think back to the electricity chapter in your high school physics book. Imagine New Hampshire as a giant circuit board and a bobcat as a tiny electrical charge. When moving from point A to point B, that bobcat is most likely going to follow the path of least resistance – that is, through the best available habitat. By examining all possible travel paths, we can get an idea of where each method predicts critical travel corridors or barriers might be,” said Rory Carroll, UNH doctoral student in wildlife and conservation biology.

The research findings are presented in “Modeling landscape connectivity for bobcats using expert opinion and empirically derived models: How well do they work?” in the journal Animal Conservation. In addition to Carroll, the research team includes UNH researchers Greg Reed, master’s graduate in wildlife ecology, John Litvaitis, professor emeritus of wildlife ecology, Marian Litvaitis, professor of conservation biology, and Derek Broman, master’s graduate in wildlife ecology, and Catherine Callahan, NH Department of Fish and Game.

To learn more about UNH’s bobcat research, visit Understanding Bobcats in the Granite State: A Cooperative Project Led by the University of New Hampshire and the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department at tinyurl.com/NHbobcats.

To read the full new release, check out this link: colsa.unh.edu/nhaes/article/2016/12/bobcats

Submitted by Lori Wright.