Add bobcats to the list of wild animals seen in New Jersey.
A Boonton man was in his yard recently when he saw a large cat emerge from behind a tree.
John Locke soon realized it was a bobcat, an endangered species in New Jersey that wildlife experts say appears to be making a comeback.
The state Department of Environmental Protection tells the Daily Record of Parsippany the bobcat is a native species in New Jersey that lives primarily west of Interstate 287 and north of Interstate 80.
DEP principal zoologist Mick Valent says the cats were once common in New Jersey but that they disappeared in the 1970s.
He says about 20 were brought from Maine beginning in the late 1970s to repopulate New Jersey.
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