Canada lynx
The Canada lynx and Conservation Northwest's commitment to protecting it in Washington state and the transboundary forests shared with British Columbia, Canada.
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.
Snowshoe hare and lynx and the science of predator-prey
What we've done to protect the lynx
About lynx
Lynx were often trapped for sport during the last century. Today, aggressive logging, roadbuilding, and development of lynx habitat has severely fragmented their living space. 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). As said so well by author Scott McMillion for The Nature Conservancy magazine, "The lynx has evolved to scrape a living from the dense boreal forests of North America, places where winter is the lean season, and it lasts a long time."
- Smaller than a cougar but bigger than a bobcat, Canada lynx have silvery fur and black ear tufts.
- Lynx are specially adapted 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 hidey-holes 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, including northern Washington, as critical to survival of lynx. Political meddling led the agency in 2007 to slash the area named as potential critical habitat by 90%. A federal court required the agency to revise its proposal in February 2008; that revision still excluded a significant amount of critical habitat, including the Kettle River Range in the Columbia Highlands. The Kettles have high quality habitat that can help to connect lynx populations between the Cascade and Rocky Mountains, something biologists deem essential to lynx recovery.
In January 2011, wildlife officials agreed to revise their earlier, flawed proposal for critical lynx habitat. They are in the process of expanding the potential range of habitat to include the Kettles.
Conservation Northwest is helping protect lynx in Washington in other ways as well, including redirecting logging outside of lynx critical habitat. These rare wild cats deserve the highest degree of protection the Endangered Species Act affords.
