Cooking up Meat from Trapped Bobcat

Bobcat Meat Tacos

Early in the trapping season this year, I trapped a healthy mature bobcat and I had a harvest tag, which meant I could keep it instead of releasing.  In Wisconsin, we only get one harvest tag for bobcats every 3-5 years.  I've always wanted to try the meat of bobcat, since everyone raves about mountain lion and bobcat meat being delicious, so since this cat was healthy, free from disease, and fresh, I decided to harvest it's hindquarters and backstraps, here's my process.

23 pound male bobcat caught in a bridger 2 dogless fully modified trap.

Unlike coyotes whose fur gets worst as the season progresses, bobcat pelts stay very good early and late in the season.  This nicely spotted cat will be tanned for a hat.

The most important part when handling furbearer meat is to remove the fat and glands that are imbedded between muscle groups.  Each gland looks like a gray kidney bean and is usually in a pocket of fat where two muscles meat. 

It's also important that prior to handling the meat, you very carefully skin the bobcat pelt off the carcass, taking care to not let any urine, feces, hair, or dirt touch the meat.  Be sure not to cross contaminate: change gloves before touching the meat or anytime you touch anything that would contaminate it, and never, ever use the same knife for processing meat that you used to skin the pelt.  Even the blade you use to cut the fat/glands out should NOT be your meat blade. 

This is what that same fat/gland pocket will look like after removing the parts that would ruin the taste of the meat.

After removing the good meat from the carcass, I then give it a very thorough cleaning to remove any hairs that might have come in contact, then remove any real big chunks of silver skin or fat.  Finally, I soaked it in whole milk and meat tenderizer overnight to move the excess blood that creates a gamey taste.

This is not a cooking blog, so I don't have a cute little recipe card for you to print, and I won't even list my recipe.  I literally just googled a slow cooker fajita recipe using chicken, and did everything the same except I used bobcat meat instead of chicken.  I went with a spicy meal just in case I didn't like the taste of bland meat.

After slow cooking everything for 8 hours on medium heat, I whisked the entire pot together and the meat fell apart just like pulled pork.

Viola! Here is the finished bobcat meat taco with all the fixings.  Look delicious right?  So here's my honest critique.....it was good, it tasted like chicken, HOWEVER, after trapping the animal, skinning the animal, and processing the meat, my brain could not separate the smell of the animal's urine/pelt from the finished meal and I just couldn't eat it.  My family however, children included, had 4-5 tacos and ate every bite, stating that it was amazing!  Therefore, I believe if you have a sensitive nose and can't separate the smells, you'll be like me and not like it.  Just a side note, I also can't eat beaver because when I try, all I smell is castor from when I trapped it!

The landowners were very happy to finally have this cat removed from their property.  It was bold, and would kill make chickens, ducks, bunnies, turkeys, and their house cats were at risk as well.  Last year they had alot of pets get killed by him right up at the house, but there wasn't a tag available to remove it.  This year, I was able to harvest this mature tom and now they don't have to worry!