Protection For East Mojave Bobcats Now In Place

Bobcat (Lynx rufus)

San Bernardino Sentinel

Efforts to protect San Bernardino County’s bobcat population have moved ahead, including the enactment of legislation last year which bans the trapping of the majestic creatures or the harvesting of their pelts in and around Joshua Tree National Park and the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve.

At present, state officials are awaiting the outcome of a survey of the entire state of California’s bobcat numbers to determine whether the Fish and Game Commission should set further restrictions on bobcat trapping permits.

Farmers and keepers of livestock have for centuries engaged in an effort to suppress the bobcat population, offering bounties on the animals, which are opportunistic predators. The bobcat (Lynx rufus) is a North American mammal of the cat family Felidae, which most often preys upon available rabbits and hares, small rodents and deer. If chickens are available, bobcats will voraciously feast upon them and will attack and kill foxes, minks, skunks,, dogs, goats and sheep. Bobcats have been credited with being responsible for roughly 11,000 sheep killings nationally every years, or 4.9% of all sheep predator deaths, though bobcat predation in this venue may be misattributed since bobcats have been known to scavenge on the remains of livestock kills by other animals.

Concern had been growing for years over human predation of bobcats. Bobcat pelts are commonly sold for $200 to $1,000 to collectors. Traders and collectors in China, Russia and Greece are particularly fond of bobcat pelts.

A common way of controlling the bobcat population consists of trapping. Trappers will monitor a bobcat’s habits and find areas they frequent. Since bobcat are territorial and mark their territory with its urine, trappers will use commercially available bobcat urine to bait a trap. They often cover the trap with sticks or brush and accentuate the baiting process with a piece of meat, mimicking the bobcat's practice of hiding away portions of larger animals it cannot finish in one sitting.

Popular nowadays are long-spring traps or coil traps, or a homesteader or rear door trap which is designed to capture the bobcat without injuring it or its pelt.

A watershed event occurred in January 2013 when Joshua Tree resident Tom O’Key found a bobcat trap on his property just outside Joshua Tree National Park. The trapper claimed he thought he had placed his device on public land.

As a result, Richard Bloom of Santa Monica sponsored Assembly Bill 1213. Which was passed into law and signed by Governor Jerry Brown in October 2013. In signing the bill Brown called for a bobcat survey to determine the appropriateness of more inclusive bans.

The law went into effect on January 1, 2014, establishing a no-trapping zone around Joshua Tree National Park and within the Big Morongo Preserve, require the Department of Fish and Wildlife to amend its regulations to “prohibit the trapping of bobcats within, and adjacent to, the boundaries of a national or state park, monument or preserve, national wildlife refuge and other public or private conservation area identified by for protection.”

The bill also codified as illegal to trapping bobcats on private lands without the written consent of the property owner.

Burro traps go up in Fort Irwin area this week

Burro trap.

By DAVID DANELSKI
The Press-Enterprise

The federal Bureau of Land Management this week will begin trapping wild burros at a spring near Fort Irwin used by an array of wildlife.

BLM officials said they expect to capture 30 to 40 burros at Owl Hole Spring, located about 40 miles northwest of Baker on a strip of public land between Fort Irwin Army training center and Death Valley National Park.

BLM wranglers will use what they call a "water bait trap."

It consists of temporary steel-pipe fencing set up around the spring. Burros, lured by hay and water, are expected to enter the trap through a "trigger gate" that doesn't let them out. The trap will be checked daily and captured burros will be taken to BLM corrals near Ridgecrest to be put up for adoption, BLM spokesman David Briery said.

The trapping is part of a larger effort to remove burros that stray onto Fort Irwin and into the national park. Helicopters will be used later this month to round up an estimated 160 burros in the Slate Range east of Death Valley and the Chemehuevi area near Needles.

Burro advocates say the animals are harmless and should be left alone. Instead of rounding them up, the BLM should take water to them, said Linda Lee, of Costa Mesa. The roundups injure animals and the adoptions break up burro families, leaving them depressed, she said.

Burros have roamed California deserts since miners used them in the region more than 150 years ago. Federal land-use plans dating to the 1980s call for no burros in Death Valley and BLM-managed land west of the park.

Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, said Friday she supports the roundups because burros drink scarce water and foul sources with their manure. The water is needed by bighorn sheep, deer and other wildlife, she said.