Karl Schneider

Indianapolis Star

• https://www.indystar.com/story/news/environment/2025/11/13/indiana-bobcats-endangered-trapping-hunting/87132643007/
• Bobcat trapping is legal in Indiana for the first time since 1969.
• For many years, bobcats were on Indiana’s endangered list. But by 2005 their population had recovered to the point where they were taken off the list.
• Some say, however, that it is premature to open season on bobcats once more. They argue more data is needed to prove the bobcat population is robust enough to survive trapping.

Nick Erny spends an hour or two each day with his 12-year-old son, walking through the Dubois County woods and checking on a dozen or so bobcat traps they set out earlier this month.

This year marks the first time in more than 50 years that trappers like Erny have been able to target bobcats in Indiana. But not everyone is welcoming the news that bobcat trapping in Indiana is back; animal rights advocates say it is premature and the data is not robust enough to support killing Indiana’s only native cat.

Bobcats were hunted and trapped to near extinction in Indiana before they were listed as an endangered species in 1969. For decades the cats precariously held their ground in the state before the Indiana Department of Natural Resources deemed the population healthy enough in 2005 to be removed from the endangered list.

After numerous previous attempts to make bobcat trapping legal again, in 2024 State Senator Scott Baldwin, R-Noblesville, introduced a bill that eventually opened the trapping season on bobcats. He told IndyStar at the time he wanted to ensure bobcats do not overrun other species, such as birds and rabbits.

Over the course of last year and into early 2025, the Indiana Department of Natural Resource’s Natural Resources Council held a series of public meetings and decided to allow trapping in 40 southern counties stretching from Vermillion in the west to Franklin in the east. The rulemaking committee set a statewide quota at 250 bobcats for the season and allowed each trapper to take a single cat.

Other states, like Illinois, Kentucky and Michigan, have long allowed bobcat trapping, so Erny has been able to trap there in the past. Trapping in his home state, however, has been a “different kind of cat and mouse game,” he said.

Bobcats are fun to trap and make good table fare, Erny said, adding he will use the pelt he gets to craft ear muffs, headbands and drink coozies.

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Erny uses the same restraint-style and nonlethal traps he sets for coyotes but adds a little extra flair. Because bobcats are visual hunters, the traps need to be high-appeal, he said. He hangs CDs and flashy objects above the traps and will sometimes add feathers and other fluttering objects.

The season this year is all about humanely managing Indiana’s growing bobcat population, Erny said, since the species’ only real predator other than man is nature.

“Just like barn cats or house cats, when you’ve got a whole bunch of cats living in your barn, eventually when females breed, the toms come in and kill those kittens,” Erny said. “Mother Nature is less forgiving than humans.”

Indiana opened bobcat trapping season Nov. 8, and just under 1,000 trappers have purchased a $15 bobcat license from the state.

During the debates over the bill, State Senator Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis, proposed two amendments that would have required the state to study bobcat populations and make sure they were sustainable before approving a trapping season. Lawmakers voted down the amendments.

Proponents like Erny argue that the bobcat population can survive a trapping season and think that the state’s rules that include a limit are a good start. If anything, Erny said, that threshold is too low.

“At least in the southern part of the state, the cat population will handle a harder harvest,” He said.

The season runs through Jan. 31, 2026, or until the statewide quota is met.

DNR using season to gather info

Because this is the first bobcat trapping season since the species was removed from the endangered species, DNR will carefully study the trapping data, said Geriann Albers, furbearer and gamebird program leader with the agency. That information, along with data from other seasons, will help DNR tweak or adjust future seasons.

“We’ve been [trapping] river otters for 10 years now, and that is the exact same process,” Albers said. “We have experience doing this and every year we learn something new.”

DNR will collect data detailing how many traps are set out and for how many nights, Albers said. This data will give the department an indication of how hard trappers have to work to trap animals, she said. One trapper setting out one trap for one night equals one trap-night. If one trapper sets out three traps for one night, that equals three trap-nights.

If the statewide quota can be met with only 1,000 trap-nights, that will suggest that the bobcat population is robust, she explained. But if it takes 25,000 trap-nights, that could lead the DNR to lower the threshold on the number of bobcats that can be trapped and killed during the season.

As of Friday, Nov. 7, one day before the season began, the DNR had sold 945 bobcat licenses. Four days after the season opened, on Wednesday, Nov. 12, trappers had already reported 35 tagged cats, more than 10% of the quota.

Before the season began, groups opposing the trapping rules argued the state did not have the data to prove bobcat populations could sustain losing numbers. Albers, however, said DNR used a population model to determine the quota to allow bobcats to thrive.

“We care about bobcats and we want them to keep doing well,” Albers said. “We don’t think this harvest season will negatively impact bobcats at all,”

Opposition groups remain vocal

Animal rights activists, however, disagree. The Humane World for Animals, formerly the Humane Society of the United States, issued a news release Nov. 4 saying that in the absence of reliable population data, it is possible that restoring trapping could devastate Indiana’s bobcat population. The group conducted a poll of Indiana voters in 2024 that showed the majority oppose the trapping season.

Samantha Chapman, Indiana state director of Humane World for Animals, said in a news release that the trapping season will only appease a small group of recreational trappers who make up less than %0.1 of the state’s population.

The group fought to have the mandated trapping rules set to a zero-quota limit, meaning that while a season existed, no bobcats could legally be trapped. This would allow the state to theoretically abidey by the new law at the same time as it would protect the population by not allowing anyone to kill cats.

“Indiana’s first bobcat-trapping season is a tragedy for our state’s shy little wild cats—and a brutal reminder that the majority of Hoosiers, who highly value humane and ethical treatment of animals, were silenced by the Natural Resources Commission,” Chapman said. “The DNR’s decision is a betrayal of wildlife conservation and the public’s trust.”

But Erny said the best way to get accurate information about the health of the population is to allow people to resume trapping bobcats and see what transpires.

“I’m thinking the DNR is going to get a plethora of knowledge,” Erny said. “They know there are good concentrations [of bobcats] in southern Indiana, and I think they will be floored at the way the numbers come in.”

And proving his point, Erny caught the first bobcat — an average-sized male— in Dubois County within two days of setting out his traps.

“It was exciting to actually catch one in Indiana,” Erny said.

This means the season is over for Erny but he will still check traps. His wife and son have yet to trap a bobcat, so the Erny family will head to the woods every day to check those traps, hoping to find a bobcat snared inside.

Hunters across Virginia are advised to adhere to firearm safety rules, prepare thoroughly, and follow specific county regulations to ensure a safe and successful hunting season.

Virginia deer season opening: Safety tips from expertsPlay Video

Virginia deer season opening: Safety tips from experts

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ROANOKE, Va. – As Virginia’s general firearms deer season opens Saturday, experts are emphasizing safety measures and thorough preparation for the estimated 250,000 acres of public hunting land available.

“Whether you’re out hunting this season, getting ready to go hunt, practicing, training, or you’re starting to shoot for sport, there’s some basic firearm safety rules that really should be followed all the time,” says Mitchell Tyler, co-owner of Safeside in Roanoke.

Tyler emphasizes the four fundamental rules of firearm safety established by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). The first rule: Always treat every firearm as if it’s loaded. “The level of respect increases, so even though you’re sure that it’s unloaded, we want to treat it as if it’s loaded because all the other things are going to help protect from an accident,” Tyler explains.

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Rule two of the NSSF guidelines focuses on trigger discipline. “We train people about proper indexing, which is instead of having your finger around the trigger, to have your finger extended along the side of the gun before you move it onto the trigger,” says Tyler.

The third NSSF rule requires never pointing a gun at anything you don’t intend to destroy. The fourth rule emphasizes knowing your target and what’s beyond it. “We need to make sure that what’s behind our target or behind the animal is also going to be safe and so we’re making sure that we don’t see anything that could be hurt,” Tyler says.

The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) stresses the importance of preseason preparation, including inspecting all gear, tree stands, and safety harnesses. Hunters must communicate their plans with others, indicating hunting location and expected return time.

With muzzleloader season underway, hunters face additional challenges. Unlike factory-made ammunition, muzzleloaders introduce more variables. “With factory-loaded ammunition, you’re going to have consistent rounds from shot to shot usually,” Tyler explains. “With muzzle loaders, there’s a couple factors… rifle ammunition is made in a factory in great conditions. Muzzle loading, you’re reloading in the field.”

Visibility remains crucial for hunter safety. “We want to be able to make sure that other hunters can identify us so when they hear movement in the woods or they see movement, that they have a really top-of-mind, presence of mind that this is another hunter or someone out there,” Tyler emphasizes. The DWR requires hunters to wear blaze orange for safety.

Hunters in Patrick, Roanoke, Shenandoah, Smyth, Tazewell and Wythe counties must have deer harvested on Nov. 15 tested for chronic wasting disease (CWD). Staffed check stations will operate from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., with refrigerated drop-off locations available.

For those hunting with hounds, additional preparations are necessary. Dogs must wear substantial collars with owner contact information, and hunters should plan to keep dogs on property where they have permission to hunt.

The DWR encourages hunters who fill their freezers to consider donating additional deer to Hunters for the Hungry through participating processors. In areas with high deer populations, doe harvest helps maintain herd health and reduce property damage.

Safeside offers firearm safety classes throughout the month. Tyler encourages hunters to have their firearms professionally inspected before the season begins, noting that many accidents happen before or after actual hunting activity.

“A lot of accidents happen with someone not out necessarily hunting actively, but the bookends of that, the before and after, where they had a firearm that was loaded,” Tyler warns. “If your firearm is unloaded, it will not go off.”

Penn Vet’s Louise Moncla has tracked H5N1 viruses in North America to better understand the role wild birds play in the current bird flu outbreak.

4 min. read

Since late 2021, a panzootic, or “a pandemic in animals,” of highly pathogenic bird flu variant H5N1 has devastated wild birds, agriculture, and mammals. Unlike previous outbreaks, aggressive culling of domestic birds has not contained it, and the viruses continue to infect a broad range of species, including wild birds and mammals rarely affected before, suggesting that transmission patterns have shifted since 2022.

Now, in a new study looking at how these viruses were introduced and spread in North America, Louise H. Moncla from the School of Veterinary Medicine and her team have found that wild birds are critical drivers of the ongoing bird flu outbreak in the United States. Their findings are published in Nature.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses—those responsible for bird flu outbreaks—continue to pose challenges for human and animal health.

“The picture for HPAI influenza has really changed for North America and the U.S. in the last couple of years,” says Moncla. “This used to be a virus that primarily circulated in Asia, Northern Africa, and domestic birds. But in more recent years, we’ve seen increasing outbreaks across Europe, associated with wild birds, and since 2022, we’ve also had similar outbreaks in our North American birds.”

Using publicly available databases from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Environment Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Canadian Wildlife Health Centre, and the United State Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the researchers traced the introduction and spread of highly pathogenic H5N1 viruses during the first 18 months in North America using genomic sequencing and migratory flyway analysis.

“The main conclusion from this study is that that outbreak was really different from all of the past ones we have had in North America because these viruses were spread primarily by wild migrating birds,” says Moncla. “Our data pinpoint the Anseriformes, which are ducks, geese, and swans.”

She notes that the since 2020, when an evolutionary shift occurred, H5N1 has become better adapted to infect wild birds, meaning that it can be spread much more efficiently when wild birds migrate. “This was happening in Europe—Europe had almost the exact same thing happen that we had in 2022. They just had it 2 years earlier.”

However, Moncla explains, H5N1 viruses in North America are still classified foreign animal diseases. “Our policy is based on the idea that these viruses come from elsewhere and don’t circulate continuously in our birds here,” she says. “Our study shows that this is no longer the case, and so we need to update our policy to align with this reality.”

This study also found that agricultural outbreaks were the result of repeated introductions of the virus from wild birds, says Moncla. In addition, backyard birds—populations of fewer than 1,000 domestic birds as defined by the U.S.D.A. and World Animal Health Organization—on average, were infected approximately nine days earlier than commercial poultry, suggesting these populations might serve as an early warning signal.

“These populations have a lot of different epidemiological features,” says Moncla. “The farms are smaller. They tend to have less biosecurity. These birds have a much higher likelihood of being raised outdoors with potentially more access to wild birds.”

Previous viruses transmitted really well between domestic chickens and turkeys, says Moncla, so stopping transmission in commercial farms would stop the outbreak. But transmission by wild migrating birds presents a challenge.

The solution? “A series of boring things,” says Moncla.

“We need to keep investing in biosecurity—biosecurity does work—making sure that people have good biosecurity plans, both to prevent transmission to other farms but also to prevent wild birds from interacting with their domestic birds,” she says, adding that a layered approach to encouraging adherence to these physical and/or behavioral protocols that prevent introduction of these viruses would also be needed.

“At some point we probably will need to investigate vaccinating domestic birds as a possibility,” she continues, adding that investing in novel ways to keep domestic and wild bird separated would also help reduce spillovers. Finally, continuous surveillance in wild birds, especially Anseriformes [waterfowl], would help with viral tracking and outbreak reconstruction.

“Our lab is really interested in risk modeling,” says Moncla. “If we had a better understanding of how these viruses are circulating in wild birds and the kind of degree to which different migratory birds are driving transmission, could we have something like a forecasting system for risk over time?” For example, she continues, if risk is highest in a particular region in September, people with backyard birds in that area could be told to make sure that they are adhering fully to their biosecurity plan during that month.

While Moncla says it is unlikely that the disease will ever completely go away or be solved, she says what we can do, however, “is try to manage it from getting into agricultural animals.”