Big day possible when kids look for wildlife
- John Lorson: The Rail Trail Naturalist
- October 6, 2022
- 694
While no great photographic capture, this taxidermy mount at Wildlife District Three Headquarters on the Portage Lakes offers at least a glimpse of the size of a bobcat with the ready reference of a known object — an electric wall socket. An adult bobcat rings in at anywhere from 11-30 pounds and stretches to a length of about 41 inches, about four times the size of your typical house cat, and bobcat sights are on the rise in the area as the cats return to their home range after a 170-year absence.
Last week I was fortunate to get to reprise one of my favorite roles with my former colleagues at the Holmes Soil & Water Conservation District by teaching the wildlife stop on their annual Tom Graham 5th Grade Farm Tour.
For me there are few things more gratifying than seeing a bunch of kids marveling over the wild things they may someday encounter right in their own back yard. That very possibility is something I always work to emphasize in my lessons. Nature isn’t something you can only see on TV or find by traveling to some far-off destination. You can find it all around here in Ohio by simply spending time outdoors and keeping your eyes, ears and minds tuned on your surroundings.
Often my wildlife lessons are woven around history. If you want to get a kids’ attention, just remind them the very place they live was regularly inhabited by bear, cougar and wolves when their ancestors first arrived a few hundred years ago. Included in that history, of course, is the fact that those same ancestors drove every one of those species out — some to the edge of extinction — in creating a space where they could safely live and raise crops and livestock.
Extirpated is a new word for many of the kids, although it’s close cousin, extinct, is well known. An animal that has been extirpated has been driven from a portion of its home range but still exists somewhere. A species that is extinct is gone from the earth for good. Each of those previous examples has been extirpated from Ohio.
The black bear is making its way back, but the gray wolf and cougar remain absent. It’s highly likely they’ll remain that way as apex predators, given to dining on livestock when offered the chance. As an omnivore, the bear will likely become more of an annoyance upon its return, rather than an overt threat — at least when it comes to farm animals.
The absence of the gray wolf opened the door to a similar but considerably less threatening predator in the coyote. Never a native of the Midwest, the coyote has endeavored to fill the void left by the wolf. It’s amazing to see the show of hands by kids who have seen or heard a coyote in the wild. Nearly every hand goes up in a Holmes County crowd — something, I remind the kids, would have never happened when I was their age a mere 50 years ago.
The most recent “re-arrival” to the area is the bobcat, and at least a handful of kids claimed to have seen one either on a trail cam or as roadkill on the byways of the county. Accounts of bobcat encounters have ballooned in our area in recent years as populations continue to grow outward from the southeastern counties of the state.
Similar to the coyote, a bobcat's tastes trend toward rodents and other small mammals, as well as reptiles and birds. It’s likely the penchant for birds will bring them the most trouble as they live in close proximity to humans, backyard chickens being all the rage these days.
I expressed envy toward the kids who have already spotted a bobcat. My day is yet to come, but I reminded them that by spending plenty of time in the outdoors with eyes, ears and mind tuned to my surroundings, the odds would be tilting ever further in my favor.
Remember, if you have comments on this column or questions about the natural world, write The Rail Trail Naturalist, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email jlorson@alonovus.com. You also can follow along on Instagram @railtrailnaturalist.