WASSMER ET AL.: SOUTH-CENTRAL FLORIDA BOBCAT ECOLOGY


they averaged more intensive use of it. Both sexes tended to use open canopy
xeric pine-oak habitats less frequently than other natural habitats. Among
man-modified habitats, adult males used improved pastures more heavily than
did females, but the difference was not significant (U5,7 = 7,p > 0.05, 2-tailed).
Most of such utilization involved crossing pastures at night when traveling
between areas of natural vegetation.
 With the exception of semi-tame female F1 who was frequently located in
the vicinity of the dwelling where she was fed, females were associated with
man-occupied habitats less than males. Juveniles showed more intensive use of
certain habitat types than did adults. For example, only one adult (M6) had a
ratio over three for use of any habitat, whereas four out of the five juveniles
had one or more ratios of habitat use ranging from 3.04 to 12.65. Two (M4,
F5) of the four juveniles showed unusually intense association with
man-occupied habitats. These were kittens of the semi-tame female, and their
high use of the man-occupied category reflects visitations of the family group to
the dwelling until the kittens were about 8 months of age. Although F6 was
also a member of this litter, her relatively lower association with man-modified
habitats is explained by the fact that she was the last of the three siblings
captured and thus a greater proportion of the data on her movements was
obtained when the young were older and less frequently accompanied the
mother to the dwelling.
 Progulske (1982) presented data on habitat utilization by several bobcats in
northeastern Florida. In his study area, habitats with medium to dense
understories were utilized more than habitats with open understories, and
bottomland hardwoods were the most preferred vegetation association.
Bobcats tended to avoid meadows and other open man-modified habitats but
not pine plantations, which comprised a small fraction (8%) of the study area.
 All known den sites of females with young in this study were in natural
vegetation associations, usually thick patches of saw palmetto and dense shrub
thickets. Winegarner (1985b) also recorded 1-month-old young going in and
out of a gopher tortoise (Gophents polyphemus) burrow. Adults without young
also preferred dense palmettos or shrubs for rest sites. In Louisiana, Hall
(1973) also found a preference for heavy cover as rest sites. In the present
study, offspring of females other than F1 apparently were not exposed to
man-modified habitats until about 2 months of age, when they began following
the mother to different rest areas within her range.
 Although radiotracking alone was seldom accurate enough to delineate the
exact travel routes of individuals being monitored, a combination of
radiotracking, tracking on foot, the placement of scats and scrapes, and
occasional visual observations indicated that bobcats generally moved about
their home ranges along firelanes, roads, footpaths, animal trails, or railroad
tracks or followed natural openings through the vegetation rather than
bushwacking through dense cover. For example, within the home range of