Today, that long-term research includes work from Meghan Keating, a PhD candidate at Clemson University who studies Kiawah’ s bobcats alongside a second, more remote bobcat population. Her work helps illuminate how human landscapes shape wildlife health— and what happens when that balance is disrupted.
In 2019 and 2020, several collared bobcats were found dead without any sign of external trauma. Two females had died while giving birth, their kittens lost with them— an alarming pattern that demanded immediate investigation.“ That raised a lot of red flags,” Keating said.“ This is not normal.”
Necropsies found high levels of secondgeneration anticoagulant rodenticides( SGARs). These potent poisons prevent blood from clotting, taking between three and seven days to kill a rat once a lethal dose has been ingested. Problematically, SGARs remain active in poisoned rodents for days. A slowly dying rodent appears injured, ideal prey for a bobcat. But, any predator that eats them absorbs the toxins unknowingly. Bobcats, foxes, coyotes, and even alligators were now at risk.
For an island that prides itself on coexistence with wildlife, the discovery was jarring.“ This gets at a bigger question of how humans impact wildlife within the ecosystem,” says Lee Bundrick, the Conservancy’ s senior ecological health and conservation coordinator.“ You see something bad happening, it ' s a negative thing, but it is also an important learning opportunity for us so we can prevent further impacts.”
What followed became one of Kiawah’ s most significant conservation successes.
Because South Carolina municipalities cannot ban pesticides outright, the Town of Kiawah turned to collective action. In 2020, it launched the Bobcat Guardian Program, asking homeowners, rental property managers, businesses, and pest-control companies to voluntarily eliminate SGARs from use.
Participation spread quickly. National pest-
38 • CONSERVANCY OF THE SEA ISLANDS