Canada lynx

Wild cat of the Loomis–and more

Washington State is home to one of the last and largest Canada lynx populations left in the United States, perhaps 150 animals, ranging from the North Cascades and Loomis Forest east to the Columbia Highlands and Selkirk Mountains. Conservation Northwest has done much to ensure that this magnificent animal continues to thrive and recover across the Pacific Northwest. The Loomis is a place we worked hard to protect for the lynx with the help of thousands of Washingtonians.

Read more on lynx by research biologist Gary Koehler.

What we've done to protect the lynx

About lynx

Lynx were trapped heavily during the last century. Today, aggressive logging, roadbuilding, and development of lynx habitat has severely fragmented their habitat. Snowmobile trails and roads pose problems for lynx because these packed-snow pathways give high-country access to cougar and coyote (which can eat lynx), and bobcat (which compete with lynx).

• Smaller than a cougar but bigger than a bobcat, Canada lynx have silvery fur and black ear tufts.
• Lynx are specialists to the deep snows of northern forests, where their massive paws keep them afloat in their snowy open forest and boreal habitat.
• Snowshoe hares, the lynx's preferred food, thrive in the dense cover of a brushy forest understory. Lynx are adapted to the natural fire cycle of lodgepole pine. Fire opens cones and releases seeds, to create  supple new shoots to feed snowshoe hares.
• Lynx need snag-rich older forests for cover for hunting and as large woody hideyholes for denning.
  

Ensuring a future for a rare forest cat

In 2000, with a population perilously low, the Canada lynx was at last protected under the Endangered Species Act  (ESA) and listed as threatened in Washington–a decade after Conservation Northwest filed the original petition urging its protection. 

US Fish and Wildlife Service biologists originally identified large areas of the West as critical to survival of lynx, including in Washington. But because of political meddling, the agency in 2007 slashed the area proposed as potential critical habitat by 90 percent. In response to a court ruling, the agency revised its proposal in February 2008, which still excluded a significant amount of critical habitat.

Conservation Northwest is helping protect lynx in Washington by redirecting logging outside of lynx critical habitat. These wild cats deserve the highest degree of protection the Endangered Species Act affords.