The 401 REPORTER
BY ELLEN LIBERMAN
ILLUSTRATION: EMILY RIETZEL / PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE CONSERVATION AGENCY / NARRAGANSETT BAY COYOTE STUDY.
Coyotes and Bobcats and Bears, Oh My!
As critters reclaim wild spaces in Rhode Island, residents are learning to coexist with their natural neighbors.
H
E HAD ONE— NO, TWO.
Or maybe just a pair of racoons. They tend to travel in groups.
Christopher Hickling headed for the two traps set off a winding backroad in Charlestown. Sub-freezing temperatures had held the New Year’ s Day snowfall to the ground, and the wind chill pushed the thermometer down further, but a pink streak on the horizon promised a sunny day. Hickling, a natural resources science graduate student at the University of Rhode Island, had been driving around since 7:30 a. m. with an antenna slapped on the roof of“ Pothole,” the university’ s Toyota Tacoma, its wire threaded through the driver’ s side window into the radio, listening for the beeps signaling that a curious animal had tripped a cage door shut.
Hickling and Kathleen Carroll, a URI assistant professor of applied quantitative ecology, had been trapping and collaring bobcats since December as part of a research project with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, the Wildlife Clinic of Rhode Island and local land trusts to understand the return of a native predator. By the end of January, they had a study sample of five males and four females.
“ Bobcats were extirpated from the state through persecution, trapping, poisoning, things like that,” says Carroll.“ But they’ ve come back on their own. And having carnivores is critical for ecosystem health. They control rodent population and disease. It’ s important for vegetation communities. They’ re part of this giant food web, so it’ s important to have some predators on the landscape.”
Which predators on which landscape is always in flux as habitat changes by man or nature’ s hand, and, in turn, the opportunities for food, shelter and reproduction change. The Rhode Island Bobcat Project is one of the latest efforts to assess this balance. Other scientists have been examining the rise of the coyote population, the trickle of black bears into the state and the decline of fishers and foxes. These tallies are conducted for scientific interest, but they can also inform public policy and
RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY I APRIL 2026 49