A legislative committee has temporarily blocked a proposed bobcat hunting and trapping season in New Hampshire, saying traps could catch accidentally catch federally protected Canada lynx and the hunt could harm the finances of the Fish and Game department.
The question of whether next winter will see a bobcat season isn’t over, however. At its hearing Friday morning, the Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules gave committees in the state House and Senate 30 days to resopnd to the ruling, and gave the Fish and Game Department 45 days to respond, meaning that the issue could return to the committe by mid-May.
The vote Friday by committee, which reviews rules proposed by state agencies, followed an occasionally heated public hearing in which two dozen people testified, most against the hunt.
In February, New Hampshire’s Fish and Game Commission narrowly approved a bobcat hunting and trapping season after more than a quarter-century. Fifty bobcat permits would be issued through a lottery for a hunting season, probay in December, and a trapping season, probably next January.