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September 2014
NWF Certified Community is the Cat's Cradle
Reprinted courtesy of Cheryl Lyn Dybas, National Wildlife Foundation.
Lying off the South Carolina coast about 15 miles from Charleston,
Kiawah Island is home to nearly 1,700 permanent human residents
and one of the densest bobcat populations in the United States. The
8,000-acre barrier island offers visitors the amenities of a golf resort,
but its pine woods and wetlands provide bobcats with a smorgasbord
of the creatures on which they prey, boosting the cats’ numbers. In the
dozen years that Jim Jordan, lead biologist for the Town of Kiawah
Island, has studied the felines, he often has glimpsed them several times
a week. “The extensive maritime forest that lies just behind Kiawah’s
oceanfront dunes offers bobcats the cover they need to hunt prey and
raise young,” he says. More than 35 bobcats roam the island, Jordan
says, exceeding twice the density of mainland South Carolina.
Prime Bobcat Real Estate
Found in most of the continental Unites States, bobcats are more widely
distributed and more abundant in North America today than they were
30 years ago, say scientists Nathan Roberts of Cornell University and
Shawn Crimmins of the University of Montana, who credit the increase
in part to changing land-use patterns - such as conversion of farmland
to woodland - that augment both habitat and prey. After studying the
role of bobcats in ecosystems across the United States, the biologists
documented that the cats are important to healthy habitats, helping to
keep prey such as rats, rabbits and deer in check.
Twice as large as house cats and bearing characteristic stubby tails,
bobcats live six to eight years and have few predators but humans. On
Kiawah Island, the cats feed primarily on cotton rats as opposed to the
rabbits that make up the base of their diet elsewhere in the nation.
To learn more about why Kiawah is high-end real estate for bobcats,
Jordan sets out baited cage traps. Researchers weigh, measure and
examine each captured cat to determine overall health and then outfit
the animals with radio collars that use satellites to track their wanderings.
During the past 12 years, Jordan and colleagues at the University of
Georgia and other institutions have monitored more than 60 island
bobcats. “With GPS data,” Jordan says, “we can identify the corridors
where bobcats travel. They use marsh edges, golf courses and other
landmarks as feline highways. Kiawah has an abundance of these
serpentine features.” By giving the cats safe passages in an increasingly
human-dominated environment, these habitat features, along with
the rich prey base of cotton rats and other species, are key to the
island’s dense bobcat population.
Kiawah’s stands of loblolly pines, its glossy wax myrtle shrubs and its
long, sandy beaches have something else going for them: The entire
island is an NWF certified community, one of more than 70 across
the nation. “Our healthy bobcat population and efforts to protect it
were major contributors to receiving this status,” says Dave Achey,
director of land management at the Kiawah Island Community
Association. He spearheaded the effort to obtain certification, which
requires that towns and cities meet certain standards for supporting
wildlife habitat. Community habitats are part of the federation’s
Garden for Wildlife™ program, under which more than 150,000
habitats at private homes, schools, businesses, government buildings
and parks nationwide provide wildlife with natural food, water, cover
and places to raise young.
Cohabiting with Bobcats
In 2005, Dale Anderson, who lives on Kiawah’s west end, was the
first homeowner on the island to have his yard designated as an
NWF certified wildlife habitat. Now dozens more, including some at
schools and other facilities, are located on the island. “I’m proud to
share my yard with bobcats,” Anderson says.
Last January, a bobcat heralded the New Year for Anderson. “I
glanced out my kitchen window on New Year’s morning,” he says,
“and at the end of my driveway was a bobcat, just standing there and
looking at me. In another minute or two, the cat, a female, was joined
by her several-month-old kitten. She gave it a signal to come out of
the woods that seemed to say ‘get your tail over here.’ Then they both
disappeared around the side of the garage.”
Anderson’s sighting is one of hundreds made on Kiawah every year,
says Bill Lacey, manager of The Sanctuary, a 255-room hotel that’s
an island centerpiece, with its grounds serving as an NWF certified
habitat. “Bobcats are often seen along the edges of our driveways and
sometimes much closer to the hotel,” Lacey says. “One evening we had
a bobcat stroll across The Sanctuary’s Grand Lawn, which overlooks the
ocean. The cat looked like it might have owned the place.”
Folks on Kiawah might see a bobcat just about anywhere, Jordan says.
One family arrived home at the end of a day and surprised a bobcat
in their front yard. The cat jumped out of a swaying palm and bolted
for the shade. “I don’t know who was more startled,” Jordan says, “the
people or the cat.”
Bobcats have been spotted sitting on manhole covers, docks, golf
courses and beach boardwalks. A few cats have relaxed on decks,
dozing away the day.
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