Rare black bobcat donated to New Brunswick Museum for study

Arareall-black bobcat will soon be on public display at the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John, thanks to donations from a trio of hunting and wildlife groups.

Veteran trapper Oswald McFadden snared themelanistic bobcat on Christmas Day, drawing wavesof attention online and sparking a bidding war among privatecollectors. The Cocagneoutdoorsman was offered thousands of dollars and an all-inclusivehunting trip out West to give up the cat.

In the end, McFadden agreed to sell the carcass for considerably less than what private buyers were offering totheNew Brunswick Wildlife Association, MonctonArea Trappers Council, and New Brunswick Trappers and FurHarvesters.

The groups immediatelydonated the bobcat to the New Brunswick Museum.

"I'm very happy that we'll have it here at themuseum," DonaldMcAlpine, research curator and head of zoology at the New Brunswick Museum, said Friday.

"There's actually quite a bit of interest in catsgenerally, in the genetics of these animals.And everyone agreed it was important to keep this animal in New Brunswick."

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The plan is to have the bobcat mounted, and the museum is now looking for a taxidermist who can do a "museum-grade job,"McAlpinesaid.

The donors said they were motivated by a desire to keep the rare bobcat in New Brunswick.

"We really wanted to keep it close to home," said Kevin White, service president of theMonctonarea fur council."And make itavailablefor the public to enjoy."

"And it's very fitting to give the animal to themuseum, in order for them to study, because it's so rare."

The bobcat's all-black fur,a rarity not only within thespecies but the cat family as well, is attributed tothe bobcat's raregenetics.

Before the cat was trapped in December,McAlpine was only aware of two other melanistic bobcats being recorded in New Brunswick. But with the recent interest in the animal, he said, hehas come across more cases of the all-black animal.

"I've been doing a bit of checking around and it turns out there are about five or six cases of melanism in bobcats in New Brunswick," McAlpine said. "It's quiteunusual. Most other cases of melanism in these cats are contained toanimalsin more tropical regions."

Other than the handful of NewBrunswickcases, only a dozen other black bobcats have been recorded, all from southern Florida.

"I was recently contacted by some researchers in the States who happen to besequencingthe entire genome of both the bobcat and the lynx," said McAlpine. "So I was able to let them know that we have tissue samples from some of these rare animals, as well as samples from some of our lynx-bobcat hybrids."

McFaddenwas offered thousands of dollars from privatecollectorsand groups for his Christmas Day catch. He was also offered a trade for an all-inclusive elk-hunting trip in the West, but turned all of the privateoffers downto keep the animal in the province.

"It's really great to see that he was able to assist us on this," White said. "It's not about a greedcomplex. It was very much about providing the specimen for public education going ahead."