New bobcat regulations are ‘a bad way to do the public’s business’

The bobcat was added to the state law that allows night hunting of the coyote, which is an invasive species in Kentucky and a threat to livestock. That is not the case with the bobcat. I grew up in Eastern Kentucky and cannot remember a single instance where a wildcat did damage to a farmer or anyone else.

This was a case of the legislature going a little crazy in the closing days of its recent session, when it’s easy for powerful legislators to slip into a bill some provision wanted by their friends, their campaign contributors, or just some constituent who caught their fancy with a half-baked idea. I served in state government, so I know how this happens. It’s a bad way to do the public’s business.

As the Lantern reported, the night hunting of bobcats was questioned by the state’s own wildlife biologists, by trappers who will be endangered by night hunting, and even some members of the state Fish and Wildlife Commission, which called a special meeting to talk about it.

The commission issued a regulation saying that a hunter could take only one bobcat at night during bobcat season, which reduces the risk, but the regulation also allows trappers and hunters to take 10 bobcats per season, up from the old “bag limit” of five bobcats.

Increasing the bag limit is something the state does when there is evidence that a species is overpopulated. That is not the case with bobcats.

Kentuckians support responsible hunting and trapping, and the conservation of Kentucky wildlife. We owe that to our forefathers and foremothers. At heart, we are all environmentalists. We have a duty to protect our environment for future generations not born. We need to leave this earth in a better place than we found it.

I live this way because it is the only way we can exist. I bought land at Station Camp Creek in Jackson County where Daniel Boone camped for his first winter in Kentucky. I bought this land to protect a historic site and its wildlife, and to preserve our environment. I cannot conceive our future existence without protection of our environment. We have a responsibility to protect it.

I’m afraid that in the case of the poor bobcats, some Fish and Wildlife officials wanted to please the supermajority that runs the legislature pretty much unfettered by politics or public pressure. As Lord Acton said in 1887, in the latest iteration of an idea that has circulated for centuries, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

That is still true, and though the bobcat bill doesn’t appear to be about corruption, it IS about power – too much of it concentrated in a majority that is not responsive to the public and too responsive to special interests and its own interests. I have a feeling that the public doesn’t like this messing around with the bobcats. Half the people in Kentucky own cats, and the bobcat is the Kentucky Wildcat!