Kent Weil

Bobcat harvest slid slightly in Illinois this season, but interest in the limited number of permits issued by DNR each fall continues to rise.
A record 9,700 trappers and hunters applied for the 2,000 bobcat permits available for the 2025-26 season, which ended Feb. 15. In all, 654 tags were filled.

Halfway through the 2026-26 bobcat season, the Illinois DNR has reported the harvest to be “uneventful,” with roughly one-third of the anticipated harvest tagged.
At the Jan. 1 mark, a total of 195 bobcats had been harvested, a number that puts trappers and hunters on pace to match or exceed last season’s record harvest of 649.

The 10th Illinois bobcat season won’t see the changes previous seasons have, but interest in securing one of the 2,000 hunting and trapping permits distributed by DNR is expected to remain high.
The application period for 2025-26 permits opens Sept. 1 and runs through Sept. 30. According to DNR Furbearer Biologist Stan McTaggart, last year’s season ran smoothly with no hiccups and he sees no problems this year.

If you are a trapper in Illinois or basically the entire Midwest, the last couple of years is not what you want to see in the wild fur industry.
The collapse of the coyote market in 2021, followed by the rapid rise and equally sharp drop in the beaver market, leaves trappers without a viable wild fur market – at least nothing of a lot of consequence. Since the dismal results of the June 17-19 Fur Harvesters Auction, little has changed over the summer. But the big surprise of this year’s auction was skunks.

The DNR has records going back to the mid-1970s that show more than 10,000 gray fox marketed each season by hunters and trappers across Illinois.
In 2024, that number was zero – not a single gray fox pelt. The decline of the species led to legislation aimed at protecting the gray fox population that sailed through the General Assembly this spring. Gov. JB Pritzker signed House Bill 3760 into law on June 30.