In a sprawl of sagebrush across northwest Colorado, a team of researchers has been tracking one of the continent’s most adaptive and elusive carnivores: the bobcat (Lynx rufus).
About twice the size of a housecat — with tufted ears, a shaggy-cheeked face and a twitchy, stubbed tail — they’re equal parts muscle and mystery. Most people don’t really see bobcats, not in the usual sense, anyway. If you’re lucky, you might catch a glimmer — a set of tracks pressed into the ground or a flash of tawny fur that could just as well have been your imagination.
Bobcats have been studied in other parts of the state before — from a territoriality project in the early 1980s on the U.S. Army’s Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site in the southeast to early 2010s research along the Front Range that challenged previous beliefs about spatial distribution. But for more than a decade, the species remained largely out of focus as a priority for Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s (CPW) Mammals Research division.
Now halfway through this five-year study — the most extensive bobcat project CPW has ever undertaken — researchers are building on earlier work to explore new questions across a wider landscape. For the past two and a half years, Wildlife Research Scientist Shane Frank and his team have been pulling back the veil on these cryptic creatures.
Across the greater Piceance Basin — a high-desert quilt of sagebrush, shale ridges and twisted pinyon pine that stretches from parts of Moffat to Montrose County — crews have logged countless hours in the field to better understand a predator that’s spent millennia mastering the art of remaining unseen.
To further investigate the complexities of these cats, Frank and his crew turned to two distinct study sites, each with its own conditions surrounding one central question: How does hunter harvest affect bobcat populations? Skull Creek, with minimal human harvest pressure, and the Piceance site, with significantly more, offered a side-by-side look at survival, density, abundance, and the ebb and flow of a species still largely perplexing across North America.
At its core, this is a study in bobcat population dynamics. What helps them survive? What causes their numbers to rise or fall? And how can data help inform the way they’re managed moving forward?
And so, armed with ear tags, GPS collars, camera traps and roadkill, field crews set out to do what only a handful in the state had done before: pin down the rhythm of a ghost cat.
It was the last Thursday in March 2023. I’d been driving from Denver and just stopped in Rifle to grab supplies for the next few days in the field when my phone buzzed.
It was one of the wildlife technicians I was on my way to meet: “We got a cat.”
I ditched my shopping list, grabbed what I could carry — jerky, trail mix, a few packets of tuna that might pass as dinner — and hurried back to the truck. Somewhere out there, a bobcat was waiting. And for the next few days, my job was relatively simple: keep up with the techs and document the process.
Capturing bobcats for a project like this requires a level of patience and discipline that borders on obsession. It’s demanding work — a grind of repetition, occasionally jolted by the adrenaline of a capture. Crews use live cage traps — designed to safely hold an animal until researchers arrive — set with scavenged roadkill: a deer carcass for bait, maybe a bird’s wing for a lure. Afternoons are spent scanning backroads, scouting for the faintest track or sign. Traps are checked twice a day, rain or shine, snow or sleet. Logging data. Rinse and repeat.
This was the day in the life of a wildlife tech — strenuous, repetitive and often unglamorous. It’s also the backbone of this entire project — the quiet, bitter work that too easily goes unnoticed but remains a necessity.
And hiring the right people truly matters. Maybe more than anything else.
“This project wouldn’t happen without the technicians,” Frank said. “They’re the ones doing the heavy lifting. Of course, I get out in the field when I can, but my main job is to make sure they have what they need to keep going.”
“You need grit, patience and the ability to work through conflicts,” he continued. “Six months in these conditions can wear on anyone. It’s really fun when you’re capturing cats, but it can be a real drag during a drought, when you’re putting in all that effort and not catching anything.”
A CPW truck was parked on the shoulder of a winding canyon road. I eased in behind it just as two wildlife techs — Jenna Lopardo and a wildlife tech — hopped out to greet me. Lopardo grabbed my attention and pointed, guiding my eyes toward a distant box trap — inside was a bobcat, the first I’d see up close. Tim Brtis and Doug Fitzpatrick, the other half of the season’s Piceance-based crew, arrived just a few minutes later.
With the team assembled, we trekked through a maze of snow-dappled sage to a hillside about 75 yards from the vehicles. Lopardo and Fitzpatrick laid out blankets, vials and ear tags, tested collars and filled syringes. Brtis and Ebel-Childs worked to clear the trap of small branches that served as both cover and camouflage, then prepared to sedate the bobcat. In minutes, the animal was calm and still, carried gently to a makeshift work station beneath a nearby pinyon.
First came the cat’s weight — this one was small, about nine pounds — followed by steady readings of heart rate and respiration. Everything was measured. Tooth wear, paw size, body length. Each detail recorded with the same meticulous care given to the final step: marking.
“Marking can take different forms,” Frank explained. “In our case, we use GPS collars and ear tags. The ear tag also allows us to collect a tissue sample that we’ll keep in a bank to store genetic information for the bobcats.”
By now, the snow had thickened to a curtain, but the bobcat was tagged and ready. The crew placed it back into the trap and administered a reversal drug to bring it back to its senses. Once it was steady on its feet, Brtis and Fitzpatrick opened the door and stepped back. The animal backed out cautiously, eyes locked on the two techs. Then it turned, silent and swift, a spectre returned to the wild.
The team of four packed up with the same calm and calculated efficiency as when they arrived. The trap was reset, new bait tucked into place, and the frame masked again with bits of brush and branches.
While bobcats have long been legally harvested in Colorado, sustainability still depends on sound science. Each capture adds a new data point — sex, weight, age, condition — helping researchers build a clearer picture of the species. From genetics to diet, movement to mortality, the findings are used to shape how CPW manages the species in the years ahead.
Bobcats are currently monitored using five key metrics:
- Mortality Density — If annual deaths exceed more than 17% of a local population, that’s a red flag.
- Harvest Effort — More hunt days to harvest a bobcat could mean fewer cats.
- Prey Base — Decreased food sources could mean fewer cats.
- Harvest Sex Composition — Harvesting too many females could impact reproduction rates.
- Expert Knowledge — Wildlife officers, biologists and hunters provide valuable field insight.
Right now, these metrics aren’t pointing toward any problems on any spatial scale, but there’s still a lot to learn. Since September 2022, teams have captured nearly 100 bobcats across the two study sites, recording more than 35,000 GPS locations from 48 collared individuals, and documenting mortality causes ranging from legal harvest to natural deaths, such as that from mountain lion or coyote predation.
While it’s still entirely too early in this study to make any definitive conclusions, patterns are beginning to emerge. The high-harvest Piceance site had a greater number of subadult captures — almost 30%, compared to only 5% in the low-harvest Skull Creek site. This suggests younger cats may be moving in to naturally fill gaps left behind by adults no longer on the landscape.
Camera traps continue to offer another window into the lives of these animals, as grids of 100 remote cameras across both study sites — roughly 150 square miles each — have produced about 1 million images since fieldwork began. The goal here is to estimate bobcat densities through mark-resight analysis, comparing sightings of tagged and untagged individuals.
“We mark cats so we can later resight them on our cameras,” Frank explained. “This allows us to estimate population densities across different habitat types by calculating the ratio of detections between marked and unmarked individuals. It’s a method that allows us to gather a lot of data while minimizing disturbance to the animals.”
Initial findings suggest that collared bobcats in the low-harvest area spent more time on the survey grids, which could reflect differences in site use or behavior that may influence detection or resight rates between the two areas. These efforts — combined with prey surveys and dietary analysis — will help clarify how habitat, harvest and environmental factors shape bobcat populations.
Unpredictability always adds another layer of complexity to these types of studies. A number of outside forces can lead to capture rates swinging drastically from season to season. In early 2024, it took about 300 trap nights to catch a single unmarked bobcat. By year’s end, that number had dropped to 31. Why? Weather, prey availability, trapping saturation — maybe a bit of each. Further analysis and spatial mapping were underway to help explore some of these influences, though full results would take time.
In addition to the numbers, there’s always the matter of access. Research like this hinges on relationships with private landowners, especially in regions where public land may be fragmented by private holdings. At Skull Creek, access to a private ranch became a keystone for success. “This was a game changer,” Frank said. “We obviously try to keep a low impact, but being able to stay on-site made everything so much more efficient.”
But access is never guaranteed. Midway through the project, a change in ranch management left future access uncertain. Months of work could have unraveled overnight — but fortunately, the new owners and managers chose to support the effort.
Beyond these individual partnerships, a strong alliance with multiple landowners across study areas has been crucial. And Frank says these relationships aren’t just about access or logistics — they’re a vote of confidence in the science.
“Maintaining good relationships between CPW and ranchers or landowners is really important to us,” continued Frank. “It leaves doors open for mutually beneficial arrangements that typically benefit wildlife — in our case, research that can support wildlife management.”
And that spirit of trust extends beyond just landowners to another network of people who know these places intimately. Hunters and trappers have provided critical field expertise — from harvest data to animal age and sex — complementing formal research and deepening the understanding of how bobcats move, survive and reproduce across Colorado.
For many who spend time on the land, whether through work, recreation or tradition, wildlife health is a shared priority. Their firsthand knowledge, shaped by years of observation, offers a different kind of insight — one rooted in patterns, experience and a connection to place — that meaningfully informs wildlife management.
Sportsmen and women remain an important thread in the fabric of conservation across the state. Their investment in wildlife goes far beyond a single harvest opportunity — it supports the long-term health of populations, helps CPW track trends, navigate local dynamics, and shape management strategies that reflect both science and lived experience.
CPW’s conservation mission isn’t only about numbers. It’s about ensuring that bobcats continue to thrive on the landscape — not solely for hunters or hikers, but for anyone who recognizes that the health of a place is reflected in the creatures that call it home.
By the end of 2025, the team will wrap up in the Piceance Basin and shift studies to a ponderosa pine habitat nearer the Front Range. There, bobcats are expected to face new pressures — traffic, development, recreation — where GPS data could reveal how they navigate a landscape shaped more and more by human hands.
In the end, this study might not be about just one cat, or even one species, but about how wild things persist in a world that’s constantly changing. It’s about what it takes to truly see them — not just with trail cameras or GPS points, but through time, attention, and a willingness to follow the faintest of signs over equally difficult ground.
Out here, bobcats move a bit like phantoms — silently slipping between the shadows, gone before you know they’re even there. But for a few days in 2023, and in field seasons since, I’ve had the privilege of both seeing CPW staff at work and watching these ethereal cats leave their tracks behind. And that’s felt like something — a small thread in the bigger fabric of understanding, tugged loose by those willing to listen to what the land is still trying to say.
When I asked Frank what gives him hope for the future of these animals, he left me with this:
I don’t really feel the need to hope for bobcats. They’re generalists — they adapt and can thrive in all kinds of conditions, and there’s not been any indication that they’re in jeopardy in Colorado. What gives me some hope for the future though is seeing how engaged some of these communities are. The hunters and trappers care deeply and are so keen on being involved in the management process. They have a vested interest in keeping the population strong, and they’re willing to step up if anything threatens that. Also, these really cool cats likely share habitat with most Coloradoans, even if the former are difficult to observe. Many people might not see them, but they probably see lots of people. And I further hope that at least one side effect of CPW’s bobcat research is getting even more people informed and interested in this elusive creature that we can all truly appreciate.
Photos and story by Ryan Jones. Ryan is a visual coordinator for Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
3 Responses
Well done, Ryan.