Let bobcats live

I would like to respond to your recent article [“DEC adopts bobcat plan,” January/February 2013] concerning the hunting and trapping of bobcats. In my seventy years of traveling many back roads in the state I’ve only seen six of the animals in the wild.

The most recent was on the Taconic State Parkway in the beginning of December. I was traveling north just below the Chatham exit. In an open space in front of a tree line I saw a large animal about one-eighth of a mile ahead of me on the right side of the road. I first thought it was a coyote because of its size. But as I approached

I saw the short tail and realized it was the largest bobcat I had ever seen. I slowed down for a closer look, and the animal turned and walked toward the tree line, looking back at me once. What a beautiful animal. It had to weigh at least forty pounds.

With only an estimated five thousand bobcats in the entire state, what’s the problem? Anyone who drives the Taconic regularly as I do knows the deer population is out of control.
If there were a small population of deer the overpopulation of coyotes would drive the bobcats out of an area. It’s the wolf-size coyotes that need to be controlled, not the bobcats. Let those shy, beautiful animals exist so that people can have the experience of seeing one, even if just once in their lifetime.

Tom Corbett, Ballston Spa