The Nevada Department of Wildlife staff recommended on June 27 that the season be limited to Dec. 1 through Feb. 19. The original season lasted four months, according to the Mercury News.

Kevin Lansford, furbearer-predator specialist for the Nevada wildlife department, blamed the shorter season on smaller numbers of bobcat kittens being born over the past two years because of drought and lack of prey.

The unanimous decision by the wildlife commissioners happened just as the Humane Society of the United States and other groups turned up the heat on Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming to scale back trapping.

The groups reasoned that the high price of the animal’s fur could have a negative effect on bobcat populations.

“We're sticking to biology,” Lansford said. “We're not trying to predict markets here.”

The Nevada Trappers Association endorsed the commission’s decision to shorten the bobcat trapping season.

“We have no problem with the shorter season,” said Joel Blakeslee, president of the Nevada Trappers Association. “It's based on the data and that's what we work with—science. When you have rabbits, you have bobcats, and when you don't have rabbits, you don't have bobcats.”