HOWARD — Millwood Road resident Don Sapp has recently had some close encounters of the endangered species kind. Since late March, Sapp has had a number of sightings of a bobcat, an extremely rare animal which has been listed as an endangered species in Ohio for many years.

Once plentiful across the state, bobcats rapidly declined in population during the 1700s and 1800s, as frontier settlement and the draining of swamp lands caused the destruction of their natural habitat. By 1850, they were gone, and remained absent from Ohio for over a century. As reforestation efforts have increased the available habitat for bobcats, they have been slowly returning to the state since the 1960s, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

The state agency has been tracking and verifying bobcat sightings since 1970, but it has verified less than 100 of those sightings in the last 37 years. ODNR makes verifications through such means as photographs of the animal and its tracks, instances of incidental trapping where the animal is released afterward, recovery of road kill and sightings by Division of Wildlife personnel. It also receives a number of unverified sighting reports annually, the number of which has noticeably increased in recent years.

The bobcat (scientific name felis rufus) is about the size of a cocker spaniel, runs 10 to 30 pounds in weight, is carnivorous and features large, tufted ears with black tips. Since the bobcat prefers remote, well-forested areas with rough topography, the overwhelming majority of Ohio sightings have happened in the southeast third of the state. Cliffs and outcroppings provide ideal den sites for raising the young and providing shelter during daylight hours. The bobcat is a solitary, nocturnal hunter, and encounters with humans are rare, even where the animals thrive.

Sapp’s first bobcat sighting happened on his Howard Township farm at dusk about two weeks ago, when snow was still on the ground. Before seeing the animal, Sapp said he heard it.

“It sounded like a squalling woman,” said Sapp about the big cat’s eerie cry.

He then heard the sound of something running down in the gravel pit and up the bank to his grainary. He finally spotted the bobcat before it ducked under an outbuilding, and described it as charcoal gray in color. Caught in full daylight, bobcats can also show a yellow or reddish-brown tint to their coats.

Sapp has seen and heard the creature a couple more times, raising the possibility that the bobcat has established a den somewhere along the Kokosing River in the eastern part of the county. Sapp said it was “a little scary” to run into this mysterious animal with the strange, caterwauling howl, but, according to the ODNR, bobcat attacks on humans are extremely rare and are confined mainly to extremely isolated back country areas. Due to their endangered status, the animals are protected by preservation laws.