The Woods Came Back. So Why Are Some of Ohio's Animals Still Disappearing?

After our video on the animals Ohio lost and the ones that came back, you told us what you're seeing, and asked about the ones you aren't. So we spent hours in the state's records, old newspapers, court files and research papers.

Ohio's woods came back: from about one acre in eight in 1940 to about three in ten today. Bobcats, once worth a 25-cent bounty, are confirmed in 86 of 88 counties. Bald eagles went from four nests to 964. But the ruffed grouse, the bobwhite quail and the muskrat are still disappearing. Why? A forest is not one thing.

What's in it:
- Why 777 bobcat sightings is not a count, and what the DNA studies say
- Ohio's bears: mostly young males passing through, and the one corner where they're raising cubs
- The Great Nest at Vermilion, the years Ohio's eagles raised no young, and the January count where Delaware and Franklin counties tied for the most eagles reported in Ohio
- The grouse: what the drumming count shows, what happened to Ohio's young forest, and what West Nile can and can't explain
- The 1917 law that made the quail a songbird, and the two winters that broke them
- The muskrat mystery, the closest confirmed cougar (and why Kentucky thinks it was someone's captive), the coyote's arrival, and the badger that was "reported as extinct" in 1906

Seen a bobcat, bear, badger, fisher, otter or grouse? Report it to the Ohio Division of Wildlife, and tell us your county in the comments (not your address).

CHAPTERS
0:00 What came back, and what didn't
1:39 Bobcats
3:51 Bears
5:32 Eagles
7:43 Grouse
11:04 Quail
12:16 Muskrats
14:12 Cougars, coyotes, badgers
16:00 The answer

SOURCES
- Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife: Ohio Bobcat Management Plan (2023); Summary of 2014 Bobcat Observations (2015); proposed rule changes (Feb. 7, 2018); Black Bear Monitoring Report (2026); bald eagle census (2025) and nest tables (1959-2012); midwinter eagle survey (Jan. 2026); Northern Bobwhite Population Status Report (2021); Furbearer Monitoring Report (2024); Ohio Hunter Questionnaire Summary: Small Game Analysis (2020-21, 2021-22); Ohio's Listed Species (2026)
- USDA Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (RB NE-19, NE-68, NE-128; EVALIDator)
- USGS North American Breeding Bird Survey, Ohio (1966-2025)
- Ohio Environmental Council v. U.S. Forest Service, No. 2:21-cv-04380 (S.D. Ohio, Mar. 30, 2023)
- Ohio Journal of Science: Dambach 1948; Kendeigh 1933; Smith et al. 1973; Weeks, Tori & Shieldcastle 1990; Hine 1906 (Ohio Naturalist)
- Prange & Rose 2020; Dyck et al. 2024; Yoder, Marschall & Swanson 2004; Batdorf 2012 and Duquette 2008 (Ohio State); Wyza 2023 (Ohio University); Kunkel et al. 2025 (West Nile in grouse)
- ODNR and The Wilds muskrat health study (2013-15); Sadowski & Bowman 2021 (Point Pelee); Dahl 1990 (wetland losses)
- Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (2014 cougar necropsy, 2015 DNA and age reports, Aug. 2015 release)
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, bald eagle fact sheet; Federal Register 83 FR 3086 (eastern puma, 2018)
- Celina Democrat, Feb. 9, 1917; Bluffton News, Nov. 12, 1959 (via Chronicling America); WVXU, July 7 and Dec. 28, 2025; Cleveland Museum of Natural History (2016)
- Chase, Statutes of Ohio and of the Northwestern Territory (1833), vol. 1, p. 171
- A. C. Bent, U.S. National Museum Bulletin 167 (1937), photographs by F. H. Herrick
- Opening quotations: Henry David Thoreau, Journal, March 23, 1856; Milton P. Peirce's account of the Hinckley Hunt (1890), in Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio, vol. II (Ohio Centennial Edition); Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (1949)
Full credits for every picture, film and recording are at the end of the video.