These are the most common wild members of the cat family in the Southwest. Their distribution over the United States takes a strange pattern, inasmuch as they are not found in several of the midwestern and southeastern States, and in a large area in central Mexico. In all there are a dozen subspecies of Lynx rufus in North America. They are tough little predators, among the last to retreat before the advance of civilization. In fact, they may often be found on the very fringes of our larger cities, existing on the rats that infest the city dump.
In the wilder areas, which are the bobcat’s appropriate home, its tracks are distinguishable from those of the larger Felidae only by their smaller size. Like the larger members of the cat family, it is equipped with a set of strong retractile and extremely sharp claws. Although there are five toes on each front foot and only four on the hind feet, the tracks of both feet are similar. This is because the fifth toe, corresponding to our thumb, is so high on the inside of the foreleg that normally it does not touch the ground. During normal travel the claws are always in the retracted position and never show in the tracks. All native cats have a tendency to place the hind feet in the tracks left by the front feet, so that in effect each track is a double print. This may be one of the reasons a cat’s approach is so silent!
bobcat
Bobcats have numerous traits in common with their relative, Lynx canadensis (not treated in this book because of its extreme rarity in the Southwest), but are more versatile in their dietary tastes. While the lynx is sufficiently dependent on the snowshoe hare that its population corresponds closely in fluctuation with that of its “host,” the bobcat has a much less discriminating appetite. It also loves snowshoe hares and rabbits, but takes various other mammals as opportunity offers, and ground-living birds. Bobcats will even eat carrion, but prefer fresh meat. They are reliably reported to eat porcupines, young pronghorns, deer, and sheep, both bighorn and domestic; and they sometimes kill adult deer, although this is a difficult and dangerous proceeding. Usually a kill is at least partially covered with debris, and the cat will return at least once to feed again on it.
Though bobcats are the least spectacular of our native cats they are the most numerous and evenly distributed. Thus collectively they may be of more importance in Nature’s master plan than we realize. Their role may even increase in importance as time goes on, because of the increasing scarcity of the larger cat species.
Red fox
Vulpes fulva (Latin: a fox ... fulva, meaning deep yellow or tawny)
Range: Found throughout most of North America north of the Mexican border. Exceptions in the United States are areas in the southeastern and central States and desert portions of the Southwest.
Habitat: In the Southwest these foxes are restricted to wooded areas of mountains. They usually are found in the Transition Life Zone or higher.