Why does do much wildlife research revolve around hunting and killing?..............We celebrate a return of a species like Bobcats to West Virginia only to salivate when we are then told we can go kill them again..............Once again, the "bi-polar" label so applicable to us human animals

http://www.wboy.com/story/27319195/wvu-researching-west-virginias-bobcat-population#.VYyLG-VK0Vg.mailto

WVU Researching West Virginia's Bobcat Population

Posted: Nov 06, 2014 1:22 PM PSTUpdated: Nov 06, 2014 1:55 PM PST

By Krista Baker, Anchor/Reporter

CONNECT

A team of West Virginia University researchers is taking "DNA fingerprints" of the Mountain State's bobcat population.

The research is to evaluate whether there should be future increases or decreases in bag limits or if the season should be shortened or lengthened.

Funding for the bobcat research comes from the sale of hunting licenses and from Pittman-Robertson Funding, which must be used for wildlife management purposes.

"There's a 30 year gap between the last time we had a good idea on how the population is expanding. That models been used for population estimates, so how many animals a trapper could take during a year. We're using that based on estimates 20 years ago data. 

The bobcats now we're sure that the populations have grown but we don't know how much and we don't want to harvest too many,” said Thomas Rounsville Jr., WVU Graduate Research Assistant.

The researchers will also put out hair snares to capture DNA testing to see how healthy the animals are.