Since the 1989 bobcat release, researchers have returned to the island many times to collect bobcat scat like this from which to extract DNA to monitor the population’s genetic health.
There are now 24 bobcats on Cumberland Island, a barrier island off the coast of Georgia, which is separated from the mainland by open water that prevents bobcats from the mainland from immigrating.
As a doctoral candidate at the University of Georgia in 1989, Duane Diefenbach — now an adjunct professor of wildlife ecology at Penn State — reintroduced 32 bobcats captured on the Georgia mainland to Cumberland Island. This photo he took back then shows one of the wild felines streaking to freedom in its new home.
Penn State researchers, who continue to monitor the bobcat population on Cumberland Island National Seashore, also conducted a study comparing and contrasting the Cumberland Island bobcats to a population of bobcats on Kiawah Island off the coast of South Carolina.
