BETHEL TOWNSHIP- An image of a bobcat captured on a trail camera located near the intersection of Palmer Road and Bellefontaine Road was posted to a local social media group on Monday. Oct. 7.

The image was captured at approximately 4 a.m. and posted on social media by local resident Guillermo Ruiz. Ruiz did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

According to wildlife officials, the true number of bobcats in the Miami County area is unknown, although the population does appear to be growing in recent years.

“There have been bobcat sightings documented for a while now,” Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Wildlife Officer Jasmine Grossnickle said. “We see evidence of bobcats and trail camera pictures, both along the Stillwater River corridor and the Great Miami River corridor.”

“We have definitely had bobcats in this general region,” she said.

Bobcats resemble a large housecat, Grossnickle said, with longer fur along the cheek line and distinctive white spots located on the back of their ears. They generally have tan colored fur, with white or spotted underbellies.

“They’re pretty much just a really large housecat, to put it in perspective,” she said. “The telltale thing with bobcats is the tail; it has that bobbed tail that is only a few inches long.”

Bobcat tracks are often mistaken for dog, coyote or fox tracks, Grossnickle said. “The bobcat’s tracks are going to be larger in size than a housecat’s. You should not have a claw mark in any kind of track you would find from a bobcat.”

She said that bobcats live in wooded areas and usually live off of small game like rodents or rabbits.

“A wooded area is preferred,” Grossnickle said. “Most of the game that they’re eating is going to be small rodents, rabbits, or things of that nature; they’re not an animal that’s going to take down a deer or anything bigger.”

Although they are wild animals, bobcats do not pose any specific danger to humans or pets, Grossnickle said.

“Since it’s a wild animal, you can never rule anything completely out, but I don’t recall any incident we’ve had of a bobcat attacking a person,” she said. “Even as far as people’s pets, I don’t recall any real instance where they were threatening people’s pets.”

“I haven’t had any complaints in this area,” Grossnickle said. “In southern Ohio or southeast Ohio where we have a higher bobcat population. We will get complaints as far as them potentially getting into chicken coops and killing chickens, similar to issues with foxes.”

The exact number of bobcats in the area is unknown, she said, although there are signs the population has grown significantly over the last 15 to 20 years.

“Sadly, a lot of our data on where we have bobcats and the age or sex of the animals comes from road kill data,” Grossnickle said. “We had a couple of road kill in Clark County; I think that was two years ago. One was on the Route 4 overpass heading onto 68, going north towards Springfield. There was also one in Springfield that was hit.”

“Over the past 15 to 20 years is when we really started seeing an uptick in bobcat populations in this area,” she said.

“I can’t answer if bobcats ever completely left the state of Ohio,” Grossnickle said. “If they did completely leave the state, they have worked their way back in.”

“I would say the population is still expanding,” she said. “We’re seeing more sightings, and we’re seeing more vehicle strikes with bobcats, so that shows us that they’re moving more also.”

Reports of bobcats have also increased in recent years due to the use of trail cameras, Grossnickle said.

“One of the main things that we have helping us understand how populated bobcats are is the trail cameras that are out there now,” she said. “People are able to capture sightings of bobcats so much more than what they previously could.”

Those who do see a bobcat are asked to report their sighting through the ODNR website at www.ohiodnr.gov.

“There’s a wildlife species sighting tab,” Grossnickle said. “If people see anything, then they can report it themselves.”