Bobcat image by wikimedia commons user Langerberg

By Dave Dahl–Illinois Radio News

Don’t count on hunting any bobcats – legally – anytime soon in Illinois.

State Sen. Sam McCann (R-Plainview) will have to start from scratch, now that ex-Gov. Pat Quinn vetoed a bobcat hunting bill which passed the legislature in one of Quinn's final acts as governor.

McCann says he read about the veto in a newspaper; nobody from Quinn’s office informed him. “Actually, that’s a microcosm of what’s been wrong here,” McCann says of the lack of communication. “It’s part of the definition of dysfunction.”

McCann hopes to try again, now that a new governor – Bruce Rauner, who calls himself an outdoorsman – is in office.

“The habitat managers, the biologists at DNR, and many conservation groups around the state say we have reached the approximately 5,000 threshold,” says McCann, pointing out that is about when other states turn to legalizing bobcat hunting, “so that ever species can cohabitate successfully.”