The Albany Times-Union featured a Sunday opinion piece about saving New York State’s bobcats. Noting that unlike wolves and cougars, bobcats have made an improbable comeback here, Tom Woodman of the Adirondack Explorer argues:
We should celebrate this victory of wild nature over senseless destruction and do what we can to extend the bobcat’s reign. Instead, the state Department of Environmental Conservation has proposed expanding the hunting and trapping of bobcats.
Woodman notes that EnCon (DEC) has received 1,200 comments on its cruel and unnecessary proposal, with 80% of commenters opposed to the idea. “These opponents should continue to speak out,” he concludes, adding that “There is no justification for continuing the sanctioned killing of these wild creatures at any time.”
According to Wikipedia, the bobcat (Lynx rufus) has been roaming the planet for 1.8 million years. Meanwhile, Homo sapiens emerged about 200,000 years ago, and only achieved “full behavioral modernity” in the last 50,000 years. Leave ’em alone—they were here first.
