Op-Ed: Vermont should not extend bobcat trapping season

September 21, 2026  |  By Brenna Galdenzi

A lobbyist who works for the Vermont Trappers Association petitioned the Fish & Wildlife Board to extend the bobcat trapping season. My first thought: Read the room. 

In a survey conducted by the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department, 68% of Vermonters oppose recreational trapping, and 62% oppose it for fur or clothing. Check out any social media post that features a bobcat and read the deluge of comments from enamored Vermonters sharing their appreciation for Vermont’s only wild cat.

My numerous trail and security cameras have never captured a single image of a bobcat. Many Vermonters would much prefer to see a bobcat alive than an image of a trapper standing over a frightened, injured bobcat caught in a leg-hold trap.

Bobcats are a cherished native Vermont species, valued not only for their beauty and intrinsic worth but also for the important ecological role they play as Vermont’s apex predator.

They prey mainly on rodents and small mammals, including mice, rats, chipmunks, rabbits and squirrels. That role takes on added significance in a state dealing with an ongoing epidemic of tick-borne disease. White-footed mice and chipmunks are reservoir hosts for Lyme disease and other pathogens. Ticks that feed on infected rodents can subsequently transmit those pathogens to people.

Bobcats are solitary animals whose population is partly constrained by available territory. Their populations are also limited by severe winter weather, disease, human-caused threats such as rodenticide poisoning, and natural predation of kittens by other predators.

Given all of this, the question before the Fish and Wildlife Department and the Fish and Wildlife Board should not simply be whether we can trap more bobcats. It should be whether there is a sound biological reason to do so.

The available data do not make that case.

The department's population trend, indicated by catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) data, raises concerns about extending the trapping season. The data for the past two seasons — 2023-24 and 2024-25 — were 1.56 and 2.20, respectively. Both figures are below the 10-year average CPUE of 2.42.

That does not necessarily demonstrate that Vermont's bobcat population is declining. But it certainly does not provide a compelling biological justification for increasing mortality through an extended trapping season.

Another concern deserves much greater attention: the prevalence of anticoagulant rodenticides in Vermont's bobcats.

Department testing found these chemicals in 69% of sampled bobcats in 2021-22 and 70% in 2024-25. The precise population-level consequences of this contamination in Vermont's bobcats are not yet known. But uncertainty about the magnitude of a threat is not the same thing as evidence that the threat does not matter.

Anticoagulant rodenticides interfere with the body's ability to clot blood and can compromise immune and circulatory systems, potentially causing fatal internal hemorrhaging. A weakened immune system can leave wildlife more vulnerable to disease, while otherwise minor injuries or parasite infestations can become far more serious. Impacts to bobcats from anticoagulant rodenticides are now starting to be seen at the population level. Recent research of a bobcat population in the U.S. that has been followed for 30 years concluded that “a significant spike in the use of anticoagulant rodenticides was correlated with a distinct decline in the bobcat population that unchecked would likely drive the population to extirpation” [i.e., local extinction].

Vermont’s bobcats also face other threats such as gammaherpes virus and parvovirus. The department is continuing its research with Saint Michael's College on these viruses, but no new data is available at this time. However, data from a 2018 study between the college and the state concluded that “91% of the Vermont bobcats studied that were over the age of two years were infected with the virus, as well as 46% of bobcats younger than two.”

If a bobcat becomes immunocompromised due to severe stress, secondary infections, or rodenticide poisoning, the virus can activate and cause tumors, lymphomas and carcinomas. Testing in 2021–2022 found 20 of 29 bobcats with rodenticides in their systems; 31 of 44 tested in 2024–25 were found to have the chemicals present.

We should therefore be asking a basic question: Why increase human-caused mortality in a species already exposed to various threats whose effects are not fully understood? Vermont's own statute provides an important standard for these decisions. It states: “The rules shall be designed to maintain the best health, population, and utilization levels of the regulated species and of other necessary or desirable species that are ecologically related to the regulated species. The rules shall be supported by investigation and research conducted by the Department on behalf of the Board.”

The purpose of wildlife management should not be simply to maximize opportunities for recreational hunting and trapping. The state has a responsibility to maintain healthy wildlife populations and consider the ecological relationships among species.

According to the department's website, “the state's bobcat population is currently stable and well distributed. But the Department also acknowledges that it is quite likely there are fewer bobcats in Vermont today than there were during much of the early-to-mid 20th century.”

If that is the case, perhaps the question the department and board should be asking is not how we can create more opportunities to trap bobcats, but whether they should be doing more to allow this iconic species to fully recover.

The department and board have the difficult task of balancing competing interests. Vermont currently provides recreational hunting and trapping opportunities for bobcats. There are also Vermonters who value bobcats for their intrinsic value and want to see them protected.

There are people who enjoy knowing that a bobcat might pass through their woods, cross a rural road, or perhaps – if they're lucky enough – to appear on someone’s trail camera. Those values deserve to be incorporated into decision-making.

The Vermont Fish &Wildlife Board meets in October. The Oct. 21 meeting is expected to be rescheduled to Oct. 14. Check the board’s website for its meeting agenda and link to watch online, as well as meeting minutes and video recordings. 

Stowe resident Brenna Galdenzi is president of the nonprofit animal welfare organization Protect Our Wildlife.