New Jersey Cats Caught on Camera

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A bobcat illuminated against a dark night background.
An adult bobcat is caught on a camera trap as it moves through northern New Jersey. © Steve Winter

For almost 30 years Steve Winter has photographed the world’s big cats: jaguars in Brazil, tigers in India. In 2023, he turned his lens to cats nearby—bobcats in his home state of New Jersey, where a conservation effort was underway to give the cats more room to roam.

About twice the size of a typical housecat, bobcats have managed to survive across most of the continental United States. But in New Jersey, they were all but extirpated in the 1970s. To re-establish the population, New Jersey biologists released two dozen bobcats that had been trapped in Maine. Now more than 40 years later, that re-introduced population is doing well, but to truly become a sustainable population, they’ll need more space—something the state along with The Nature Conservancy are trying to give them through newly connected wildlife corridors.

For Winter, this was an appealingly close-to-home cat and conservation issue. Under assignment for The Nature Conservancy and its magazine, he began more than two years of attempting to get the shot he wanted: a mother and a kitten in a daylight setting.

Working with staff from The Nature Conservancy and from the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, Winter placed custom camera traps and lighting equipment where bobcats were known to travel, including near TNC’s Johnsonburg Swamp Preserve. Then he’d leave and return later to check what images had been captured.

Sometimes he found pictures of bobcats. Often not. “We had a raccoon sitting on one of the triggers once,” he says. The raccoon triggered hundreds of photos.

Winter, though, is used to the uncertainty because each cat brings its own challenges. “With [big cats] you get to understand their behaviors and where they move. And with bobcats, we know they’re in this area. But in these couple of years, I haven’t gotten the picture I wanted … But I’m not giving up—no way.”

Two men set up a camera near a pond.
Steve Winter sets up a camera trap near TNC’s Johnsonburg Swamp Preserve in northern New Jersey with help from Joe Garris of New Jersey Fish and Wildlife. Winter used a custom camera and flashes triggered by movement to capture images of the elusive New Jersey bobcat. But first, he had to understand where they might wander and how they might interact with the environment around them. “I’ve had to learn a lot from local people, biologists, anyone that hangs around these areas to give me an idea where the cats go,” he says. © Steve Winter
A camera trap image of a bobcat walking past the camera in the fog.
“When I [first] looked at photographing jaguars, I would stand in the forest and look at the beams of light streaming down at a certain location—where I knew the cat might walk by—and my original idea was to mimic the sunlight,” Winter says. “When people put up a flash and it lights the whole scene, well that could work if you’re in an open field. But that is not [going to work] in a rainforest or jungle environment—or just in the woods in western New Jersey.” Here his lighting captured the fogginess and moodiness of a bobcat walking through a New Jersey forest. © Steve Winter
A camera trap image of a dog and a human's leg against a forest backdrop.
Winter set his camera traps where bobcats were known to travel, including along a trail that leads down to a pond on TNC’s Johnsonburg Swamp Preserve. He knew that the cats would sometimes walk along the trail to the pond to drink water. He set up his gear and waited to see what images the camera would capture. He did find bobcats, but he also found many other animals—some less wild than others. Here he captured a hiker trekking by with their dog. © Steve Winter
A camera trap image of two black bears.
Winter has photographed cats all over the world. On one assignment, he had to figure out how to rig up camera gear out of reach of the trunks of curious elephants. But photographing bobcats about three hours from his home, he says, has “been one of the most difficult” assignments. “There’s always some reason we can’t get this or that.” Playful cubs chew on wires or move lights. Curious animals bump into things. At one point, he captured an image of three bears and realized he needed to make sure the equipment was out of their reach too. © Steve Winter
A camera trap image of a wild turkey against a green wooded backdrop.
Over the course of the two years he worked the assignment on-and-off, Winter checked his camera traps, frequently adjusting their placement. Over time, he gathered an increasingly wide snapshot of the wildlife in this urban corner of the world. There was the racoon that triggered the camera hundreds of times. The bears. But also wild turkeys, opossums, deer and more—all animals that rely on the corridors the state and conservationists are trying to establish for the bobcat. “There are a lot of animals out there,” Winter says, laughing. “And I’ve got them all on camera.” © Steve Winter
A spotlit Virgina opossum against a night background.
Experts estimate that more than 120 species rely on the same Appalachian habitats that bobcats do in western New Jersey. It’s something Winter has seen as he photographed underpasses and culverts that allow animals to cross under busy roadways. “We need safe passage for these animals, over or under all the roads. They constrict their movements, constrict their genetics,” he says. “Right now, the Dept of Transportation in New Jersey and the New Jersey Fish and Wildlife are learning the importance of working together.” Here he caught an opossum on camera. © Steve Winter
A camera trap image of a bobcat walking towards the camera in the woods.
His photos of bobcats were the result of substantial research into the movement and behavior of the cats in their environment, along with some careful planning to frame the shot. “I know exactly where they’re going to be [in the frame],” he says. “I know I’m going to get a butt shot when the cat walks down the trail to the lake. Then it’s going turn around and walk back towards the camera.” That proved true in this image of a cat walking back up the trail from a pond on a TNC preserve. © Steve Winter
Two bobcats, one in a spotlight, against a dark night background.
Over the decades photographing cats around the globe, Winter has grown used to learning the nuances of different species and what each requires in order to get the specific shot he’s looking for. Still, with bobcats, he says, “it’s more difficult than I thought it would be.” He captured this moment of a kitten—no more than 6 months old—near its mother. The photograph appears on the cover of Nature Conservancy magazine’s Issue 3, 2025. For now, Winter continues to photograph the bobcats, still searching for his perfect shot. © Steve Winter

Read about the work to help bobcats—along with stories about reviving the Chesapeake Bay and sustainable ranching in the West—in the latest issue of Nature Conservancy magazine.

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