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Baker, L.A.; Warren, R.J.; James, W.E.
Bobcat prey digestibility and representation in scats
1993 Conference Proceeding
Nine bobcats (_Felis rufus_) trapped from the Coastal Plain of Georgia in fall 1989 were fed weighed amounts of cotton mice (_Peromyscus gossypinus_), hispid cotton rats (_Sigmodon hispidus_), eastern grey squirrels (_Sciurus carolinesis_), domestic rabbits, a juvenile feral hog (_Sus scrofa_), and adult white-tailed deer (_Odocoileus virginianus_) to develop correction factors to convert mass of prey remains in scats to an estimate of mass of prey consumed for different prey types. Dry matter digestibility increased with increasing prey size except for white-tailed deer. For prey under 4.5 kg, we developed a regression equation (_r_2 = 0.75, _P_ < 0.0001) to estimate correction factors for different sizes of prey. With this information, percent biomass consumed of different prey species in bobcat diets can be estimated from remains in bobcat scats.
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