The Truth About Bobcats and Caching
Bobcats are elusive wild cats found throughout North America, known for their stealth and adaptability. These solitary predators navigate diverse environments, from forests to deserts, exhibiting a range of behaviors to secure their survival.
A common question about their post-hunt practices is whether bobcats bury their kill. They do, a behavior known as “caching.” This involves storing uneaten prey for later consumption, a common survival strategy among carnivores. For bobcats, caching maximizes their hunting efforts. It is not always a complete burial, but rather a covering of the carcass designed to conceal it.
Reasons Behind the Behavior
Bobcats engage in caching behavior for several reasons, primarily for food security. By covering kills, they create a food reserve, allowing multiple meals from a single large prey item. This practice helps them sustain themselves, especially when hunting conditions are challenging or prey is scarce.
Another significant motivation for caching is to protect their meal from scavengers and other predators. Concealing the carcass with debris reduces its visibility and masks its scent, deterring animals like coyotes, foxes, vultures, and even other bobcats from discovering and stealing the food. This minimizes competition and ensures the bobcat retains access to its sustenance.
Caching also aids in energy conservation. After consuming a portion of a larger kill, a bobcat can return to the cached meal rather than expending energy on a new hunt immediately. This strategy is beneficial when a bobcat takes down substantial prey, like a deer, which would take several days to consume.
How and What They Cache
When a bobcat caches its prey, it typically uses its paws and nose to scrape available natural materials over the carcass. These materials can include leaves, dirt, twigs, snow, or other debris found in the immediate vicinity of the kill.
Bobcats most frequently cache larger kills that cannot be consumed in a single sitting, such as white-tailed deer or similar-sized prey. While rabbits and hares form a significant part of their diet, smaller animals are often eaten entirely. They may even bite away hair from larger prey like deer, which often mixes with the debris used for covering.
The selection of a caching location is often strategic, favoring sheltered spots. Bobcats may choose to cover their kills under bushes, near rocky outcrops, or in other secluded areas that offer natural concealment. They will revisit these caches repeatedly over several days, or even weeks, until the entire carcass is consumed, often re-covering the remains after each feeding.