Wild Cats In South Texas

Posted on February 7 2015 by Michael Broad.

Wild cats in south texas. Apparently the cats were disruptive to the large white-tail deer and quail that the game ranch contained. Not much larger than a house cat the jaguarundi. There are several kinds of wild cats that call Texas home.

The wild cats of Texas represent the most mysterious and beautiful elements of our native fauna. Camera traps in a south Texas wildlife refuge spotted a new ocelot roaming through the park. Throughout the years I have learned that nothing grabs the attention of an outdoors lover quicker than a wild cat encounter.

Wild animals prefer to live far away from civilization. The Feline Research Program at Texas AM University-Kingsville is dedicated to conducting research on wild cats to gain understanding of their ecology behavior and conservation genetics and apply knowledge gained to the recovery of wild populations. The last encounter with a jaguar in South Texas was in the 1950s in the San Benito area.

These wild cats are known as the ocelot the jaguarundi the margay and the jaguar though it is now probably extinct in Texas. Current estimates are that fewer than 50 of these wild cats are left in the US with all of them residing in South Texas. The conservation status where known of every wild cat species has been.

We have been dedicated to. Mountain lion sightings are not unheard of in this part of south Texas but as with other sightings it is the apparent melanism of the big cat witnessed that makes this incident even more unique. Bobcats are about twice the size of a domestic cat with a muscular physique and prominently pointed ears.

The OCELOT is native to southern Texas and north-eastern Mexico. Many wild cats species are either endangered or threatened. Eighty or fewer ocelots ornately spotted middle-weight felids resembling undersized.