![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/80312069007-trnd-cincy-bobcat-spotted-at-colerain-township-thumb.jpg\"\/)
![\"play\"](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\"){kind=icon}
<\/p>\nJim McCormac
\n\u00a0|\u00a0 Special to The Columbus Dispatch<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bobcat spotted at Richardson Forest Preserve in Colerain Township<\/p>\n
A bobcat was caught on camera on a walk at the Richardson Forest Preserve in Colerain Township, Ohio.<\/p>\n
Some of the most iconic mammals on Earth are large carnivores: lions, polar bears, tigers, snow leopards and many others. Unfortunately, nearly two-thirds of them are at risk of extinction due to the hand of man.<\/p>\n
Ohio once had a thriving suite of carnivores, including bears (more precisely an omnivore), mountain lions, wolves and bobcats. But as our human population flourished, these animals suffered.<\/p>\n
At the time of statehood, 1803, there were about 45,000 settlers of European descent. Today, the Buckeye State\u2019s human population is pushing 12 million.<\/p>\n
Bobcats, mountain lions and wolves vanished by 1855, victims of human persecution. People, in general, do not like larger predatory animals and do not want them around.<\/p>\n
Tangential to the disappearance of these charismatic mammals was the tremendous loss of the state\u2019s forests. At the time of settlement, 95% of Ohio was blanketed in rich tapestries of various woodland types.<\/p>\n
By the mid-1800s, most of that had been cleared, leading to the extirpation of another large mammal, the elk, a common prey item for mountain lions and wolves.<\/p>\n
Almost unimaginable, today, white-tailed deer and wild turkey had been vanquished from Ohio by the early 1900s. But people can right their wrongs, sometimes.<\/p>\n
Now, nearly one-third of Ohio is forested again, and that has allowed some forest-dependent animals to proliferate, perhaps most conspicuously the aforementioned deer and turkey. Far more exciting, to me, is the return of the charismatic bobcat, our only extant wild cat.<\/p>\n
In 1946, a bobcat was confirmed in Scioto County, the first record in nearly a century. Their numbers steadily increased, although bobcats remained rare for many more decades.<\/p>\n