Wild Cats In South Texas

They have no place to go because the native vegetation has been cleared making it hard for them to establish new territories find the shelter they need to rest feed and raise their young.

Wild cats in south texas. Currently found only in extreme southern Texas. The last encounter with a jaguar in South Texas was in the 1950s in the San Benito area. There are several kinds of wild cats that call Texas home.

Apparently the cats were disruptive to the large white-tail deer and quail that the game ranch contained. Wild cats are solitary territorial animals. South Texas had originally five species of wild cats.

Hidden away between Brownsville and Port Isabel is the habitat of rare ocelots small wild cats which are native to Texas. The Feline Research Program at Texas AM University-Kingsville is dedicated to conducting research on wild cats to gain understanding of their ecology behavior and conservation genetics and apply knowledge gained to the recovery of wild populations. One of the rarest and most striking wild cats in the United States is getting a helping hand in South Texas.

Ocelot kittens are born blind after about a month their eyes finally open and they start to develop different colors on their fur. At 2011 Texas Parks Wildlife say there are four wild cat species in Texas USA. Camera traps in a south Texas wildlife refuge spotted a new ocelot roaming through the park.

Both live in far south Texas and consume similar prey species consisting of rabbits small birds and rodents. Of late south Texas and the Hill Country seem to be the hot spots for black panther sightings. Mountain lion sightings are not unheard of in this part of south Texas but as with other sightings it is the apparent melanism of the big cat witnessed that makes this incident even more unique.

Rare wild ocelot spotted on South Texas wildlife refuge. The single greatest threat to ocelots is loss of habitat. The desert bobcat is found in the west and northwest regions of the state while the Texas bobcat roams throughout the rest of the state.