A lobbyist who works for the Vermont Trappers Association petitioned the Fish & Wildlife Board to extend the bobcat trapping season. My first thought: Read the room. In a survey conducted by the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department, 68% of Vermonters oppose recreational trapping and 62% oppose it for fur or clothing. Check out any social media post that features a bobcat and read the deluge of comments from enamored Vermonters sharing their appreciation for this majestic animal.

My numerous trail and security cameras have never captured a single image of a bobcat. Many Vermonters would much prefer to see a bobcat alive than an image of a trapper standing over a frightened, injured bobcat caught in a leg-hold trap.

Bobcats are a cherished native Vermont species, valued not only for their beauty and intrinsic worth but also for the important ecological role they play as Vermont’s apex predator. They prey mainly on rodents and small mammals, including mice, rats, chipmunks, rabbits and squirrels. That role takes on added significance in a state dealing with an ongoing epidemic of tick-borne disease. White-footed mice and chipmunks are reservoir hosts for Lyme disease and other pathogens. Ticks that feed on infected rodents can subsequently transmit those pathogens to people.

Bobcats are solitary animals whose population is partly constrained by available territory. Their populations are also limited by severe winter weather, disease, human-caused threats such as rodenticide poisoning, and natural predation of kittens by other predators.

Given all of this, the question before the department and board should not simply be whether we can trap more bobcats. It should be whether there is a sound biological reason to do so.

The available data do not make that case.

The department’s population trend indicated by catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) data raises concerns about extending the trapping season. CPUE for the past two seasons — 2023-24 and 2024-25 — was 1.56 and 2.20, respectively. Both figures are below the 10-year average CPUE of 2.42.

That does not necessarily demonstrate that Vermont’s bobcat population is declining. But it certainly does not provide a compelling biological justification for increasing mortality through an extended trapping season.

There is another concern that deserves much greater attention: the prevalence of anticoagulant rodenticides (ARs) in Vermont’s bobcats.

Department testing found ARs in 69% of sampled bobcats in 2021-22 and 70% in 2024-25. The precise population-level consequences of this contamination in Vermont’s bobcats are not yet known. But uncertainty about the magnitude of a threat is not the same thing as evidence that the threat does not matter.

ARs interfere with the body’s ability to clot blood and can compromise immune and circulatory systems, potentially causing fatal internal hemorrhaging. A weakened immune system can leave wildlife more vulnerable to disease, while otherwise minor injuries or parasite infestations can become far more serious. Impacts to bobcats from ARs are now starting to be seen at the population level.

Vermont’s bobcats also face other threats such as gammaherpes virus and parvovirus. The department is continuing its research with St. Michael’s College on these viruses but no new data is available at this time. However, data from a 2018 study between the College and the department concluded: “91 percent of the Vermont bobcats studied that were over the age of two years were infected with the virus, as well as 46 percent of bobcats younger than two.” If a bobcat becomes immunocompromised due to severe stress, secondary infections, or rodenticide poisoning, the virus can activate and cause tumors, lymphomas, and carcinomas. 20 of 29 bobcats tested in 2021–22 and 31 of 44 tested in 2024–25 found to have rodenticides in their systems.

We should therefore be asking a basic question: Why increase human-caused mortality in a species already exposed to various threats whose effects are not fully understood?

Vermont’s own statute provides an important standard for these decisions. It states:

“The rules shall be designed to maintain the best health, population, and utilization levels of the regulated species and of other necessary or desirable species that are ecologically related to the regulated species. The rules shall be supported by investigation and research conducted by the Department on behalf of the Board.”

The purpose of wildlife management should not be simply to maximize opportunities for recreational hunting and trapping. The state has a responsibility to maintain healthy wildlife populations and consider the ecological relationships among species.

According to the department’s website, “the state’s bobcat population is currently stable and well distributed. But the Department also acknowledges that it is quite likely there are fewer bobcats in Vermont today than there were during much of the early-to-mid 20th century.”

If that is the case, perhaps the question the department and board should be asking is not how we can create more opportunities to trap bobcats, but whether they should be doing more to allow this iconic species to fully recover.

The department and board have the difficult task of balancing competing interests. Vermont currently provides recreational hunting and trapping opportunities for bobcats. There are also Vermonters who value bobcats for their intrinsic value and want to see them protected. There are people who enjoy knowing that a bobcat might pass through their woods, cross a rural road, or perhaps — if they’re lucky enough — appear on a trail camera. Those values deserve to be incorporated into decision-making.

Brenna Galdenzi is the president of Protect Our Wildlife Vermont, a Stowe-based nonprofit organization.