'It’s a girl!' Biologists snare first female lynx
K.C. Mehaffey of the Wenatchee World reports on the first female lynx trapped by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists, as part of an ongoing study of the state’s largest population of the elusive cats in Okanogan County.
Lucy, an 18-pound female Canada lynx, is the first female to be captured and radio-collared in four years. Scientists have also caught and collared 10 males during this study of the largest population of lynx in the state. WDFW photo
LOOMIS — On March 21, Scott Fisher finally broke out his “It’s a girl!” cigar.
A regional biologist for the state Department of Natural Resources, Fisher is not a new father.
But he is a proud researcher who helped trap Lucy, the first female Canada lynx to be captured in an ongoing study of the state’s largest population of the elusive cats in Okanogan County.
Ten other lynx have been captured, radio-collared and released in the Loomis area over the last four years, but this is the first time they trapped a member of the fairer — and apparently more cautious — sex.
To the wildlife biologists who put in a combined 7,000 miles on snowmobiles this winter to check traps daily and periodically restock them with fresh road-killed meat, it was a nice way to end the season. “There was a bunch of high-fiving going on,” Fisher said.
Researchers have been focused on trapping a female this year, and even used hounds to chase a few before the winter trapping got going, but the cats were too fast.
Lucy wasn’t exactly an easy catch.
Just 10 days earlier, she walked into one of their loosely built PVC pipe and chicken-wire cages three hours after they visited the empty enclosure.
She came in and took the bait, which triggers a mechanism that closes the door.
“She proceeded to eat the bait, and then pushed and pulled and chewed, until she had a small hole in the door — about the size of your hand — and got out,” Fisher said.
A remote camera captured approximately 60 pictures of Lucy making her successful escape. It was only the second time a lynx has gotten out of a trap in the past four years of study, Fisher said.
Researchers were pretty sure she was female from some of the photos.
They confirmed it when they recaptured the 18-pound lynx.
Fisher said Lucy is an older female, with fairly worn teeth, and had no kittens, according to the footprints surrounding the trap.
Researchers don’t know if she lost her kittens this year, or if she just didn’t have any, but Fisher said she appeared to be young enough to mate successfully.
They’re hoping that in a couple of months, Lucy will hole up in a den and have a litter, so they’ll be able to follow the movements of a mother with kittens through the summer, using information from the GPS satellite collar she’s now wearing.
Fisher said he suspects that females with kittens are the most wary of traps, and the fact that she had no kittens may have helped them capture Lucy.
“There were other females in the project area that had kittens, and they did not go in the trap. They walked right up to the door, but didn’t go in,” he said.
Fisher said it’s just speculation, but he thinks females with kittens are more wary of risk. And walking into a trap, even with bait inside, is risky. “It just makes sense. If something happened to them, they lose their entire reproductive output for the year,” he said.
An added factor could be that female cats with kittens are more successful hunters, so they aren’t as desperate for food, and therefore not tempted by the bait.
“For an individual cat, if you flush a bunny, it’s up to you to catch it,” he said.
But a mother and her kittens often hunt for snowshoe hare as a group, he said, and then gather and share in the kill.
Fisher explained: “There are multiple cats, and they spread out and do a push through this hare habitat. They flush a lot of hares and push them to each other. I think they’re more effective and successful at hunting because of that.”
