Life on the Watershed: Bobcats,Young Cubs, and Watershed Health

The bobcat cubbing season is over. But the juveniles will be around for another several months, doing their part to sustain watershed health. 

When the cubs reach 8 to 11 months of age, the mother will evict them from her territory. The medium-size feline is distinguishable by its short bobbed tail. The Peninsula Watershed with its expanse of diverse vegetation is ideal habitat for these

predators, which are big enough to take down small deer but still agile enough to grab darting rabbits and other small animals.

Since they’re so high on the food chain, bobcats sustain a robust habitat by keeping the ecosystem balanced. They weed out species lower on the food chain, which otherwise would increase and overrun  the food resource. Then, while some starve, the rest of the population weakens and the gene pool declines.

It’s an effect that keeps trickling down to lower species, and eventually the plant communities as they get overgrazed. And that deprives critical lower forms, like earthworms--the recyclers. They're the ones that decompose dead leaves and other organic matter into smaller pieces, enabling  stored nutrients to  be  released back into the soil. The renewed soil replenishes the plant life, and the recharge works its way back--to the bobcats and on up.