Shooting reveals unexpected threat to urban bobcats in Tucson

A Tucson man is facing a misdemeanor charge in connection with the killing of a bobcat last year that was part of a research study.

According to Arizona Game and Fish Department spokesman Mark Hart, William Simmons told state game officers that he shot the animal on his back wall in a west-side neighborhood because it was threatening his pets.

Killing a bobcat under circumstances like that isn’t illegal, Hart said, but “what he should have done was contact us to report it.”

The adult female bobcat, nicknamed Sadie by researchers, was found dead from a gunshot wound on Sept. 28, after a mortality alert from the tracking collar that was placed around her neck about eight months earlier.

Simmons, 70, lives near where the dead bobcat was recovered, between Whispering Bell Drive and Painted Hills Road, south of Ironwood Hill Drive. He was cited for killing wildlife without a license.

A state game officer also issued written warnings to the man for using an unlawful method of wildlife “take,” recklessly discharging a firearm, discharging of a firearm within a quarter mile of an occupied structure and “false reporting” to law enforcement.

Hart said Simmons told officers he fired two warning shots with his handgun to try to scare the cat away before shooting the animal.

Simmons could not be reached for comment.

A hearing in the case is set for Jan. 27 in Pima County Justice Court.

Sadie was one of 31 bobcats that have been trapped and fitted with tracking collars since November 2020 as part of the Bobcats in Tucson Research Project.

The ongoing behavioral study tracks bobcats between the Tucson Mountains and the Santa Cruz River to learn more about how they move through populated areas in search of food and places to give birth and raise their young.

Poultry problem

Biologist Cheryl Mollohan, who is leading the project under a permit from Game and Fish, said the findings so far point to an unexpected threat to urban bobcats: humans with guns, defending their domestic animals.

Sadie was at least the third test subject to be shot to death in the past two years. On Oct. 1, a male bobcat, nicknamed Jonathan, was killed near West Starr Pass Boulevard and North Shannon Road by a resident who said the cat was stalking his chickens. A different male, Dave, was shot dead by a Menlo Park homeowner for the same reason in 2021.

Hart said Game and Fish did not issue citations in those two cases, because the shootings were properly reported to authorities and the residents were cleared of any wrongdoing.

Based on the number of incidents so far just involving animals in the study, Mollohan suspects more Tucson bobcats than previously known are getting killed by people for preying on backyard poultry or pets.

Within the past week, the research team received a report of another radio-collared bobcat carrying off chickens from a house not far from where Sadie was killed. The culprit turned out to be Beverly, an adult female with a kitten to feed.

Mollohan said the homeowner was trying his best to avoid having to kill the cat, but he was running out of ideas.

Researchers ended up paying the man for the four chickens he lost, and they plan to help him install an electric barrier on top of his back fence in hopes of discouraging Beverly’s return.

The Bobcats in Tucson Project is tracking 17 animals, and researchers hope to catch and collar five more cats by the end of the month.

Nine bobcats have died over the course of the study so far, including the three that were shot.

Three others were run over in the road and one died two days after it was trapped and released, possibly from the stress of being captured, though a necropsy found no clear cause of death.

The latest loss for the project came in November, when the tracking collar from a male bobcat known as Steve was found cut off and left on the side of the road in the cat’s home range, which crossed Ajo Way.

“We did not retrieve a body, so (there is) no way to know what happened, but I suspect it was another illegal kill,” Mollohan said.

It’s frustrating to her that state regulations don’t do more to discourage the use of lethal force against bobcats, coyotes and other unprotected wildlife. “The way the law is now, there’s just no protection for predators,” she said.

Sweet and sour

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Not everyone supports what Mollohan and company are doing.

The research project has drawn some criticism in recent months from photographers and other wildlife enthusiasts, who are upset to see tracking collars on two of the bobcats that frequent Sweetwater Wetlands.

The complaints started last January, after researchers caught and collared a male they nicknamed Wyatt. But wetlands visitors already knew the animal by another name: Graybeard.

Opposition intensified about a month ago, when one of the wetlands’ most familiar cats, known to wildlife watchers as Mama, also showed up wearing a collar.

Photographer and wetlands regular Fred Hood said the behavior of the two cats has changed significantly since they became unwitting test subjects. They are seen less frequently than before, and when they do show up, they seem less relaxed and more skittish around people.

“They have basically ruined the photo ops at Sweetwater,” Hood said. “Their website states one of their goals is to increase ‘appreciation of bobcats as watchable wildlife.’ Their actions are having the opposite effect: They have ruined perhaps the best bobcat watching opportunity in the nation.”

He’s also not crazy about the tracking collars themselves, which he considers invasive and potentially dangerous to the cats as they cross back and forth through the fences surrounding the wetlands park operated by Tucson Water.

He doesn’t think the collars look very good in photographs, either. “It’s nothing I’d hang on my wall or be able to sell,” he said.

In recent weeks, one of Hood’s fellow wetlands photographers launched an online petition at Change.org called Free the Bobcats of Tucson. As of Friday, 589 people had signed the petition, which calls for the collars to come off and the study to end.

Both Tucson Water and the Arizona Game and Fish Department continue to back the research project.

In March, Tucson Water Administrator Jeff Biggs pledged his full support to the study in a letter granting the research team full access to Sweetwater Wetlands, including after hours.

Hart said Game and Fish has not received any complaints about the project that he is aware of, but the agency has no concerns of its own with the researchers’ use of tracking collars.

He said state wildlife biologists frequently use the same technology themselves.

“We collar all manner of species. That’s how we know that sandhill cranes (near Willcox) fly from as far away as Siberia — radio-tracking data,” Hart said. “That is the best way to get field data on species.”

Collars come off

For her part, Mollohan said they simply could not gather the detailed location data they are collecting by using trail cameras, scat surveys or any of the other, more passive techniques Hood and others have suggested.

“So much of what we know about wild animals is because of radio collars,” she said. “To say that you can learn from observation alone, especially with bobcats, just isn’t realistic.”

As for the specific complaints surrounding Sweetwater Wetlands, she said her team has never set traps within the park or intentionally targeted bobcats known to frequent that area.

After the dust-up over Wyatt’s collar early last year, she said she set a strict “no-trap zone” around the wetlands and committed to not collaring any cats within 1.6 miles of the place.

The bobcat known as Mama — researchers call her Cassidy — was caught well outside that buffer zone, Mollohan said.

Ultimately, opponents of the study will get their wish. A little over a year from now, all of the bobcats should be free.

Mollohan said nine of the tracking collars in use are scheduled to automatically drop off of their test subjects in early June. The rest of the collars are set to come off by Feb. 1, 2024.

A final report on the research project is due in August of next year.

Mollohan said the document will include a complete analysis of all the data gathered since 2020, as well as recommendations for how residents can make Tucson an even more welcoming place for bobcats.

“It’s as much a study for humans as it is for bobcats,” she said. “These bobcats encounter people every day. The goal is to mitigate conflict and find a way forward that’s positive for both bobcats and people.”