The Canada lynx, a snow-dependent wildcat, could soon see new protections in the Western U.S. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced last week a finalized recovery plan for the species and is proposing new critical habitat designations.
While lynx are primarily found in Canada and Alaska, small populations are also found in patches of the Mountain West, Midwest and Northeast. The species has been listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act since 2000, and as snow-dependent creatures, are particularly sensitive to climate change.
The USFWS announcement comes after years of legal action by environmental groups, which sued the agency for failing to develop a recovery plan in the two decades after listing. The groups also challenged the decision by USFWS to exclude the Southern Rocky Mountains from the map of critical lynx habitat areas and a 2017 proposal to remove Endangered Species Act protections for lynx.
As a result of a court settlement, the USFWS has published a recovery plan and is proposing updated critical habitat designations for the lynx across 19,000 square miles of Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Washington and Wyoming based on recent scientific research and modeling.
It includes some additional key habitat areas but also proposes shrinking large portions of them in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem where wildlife officials believe lynx are less likely to thrive.
Matthew Bishop, a senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center who represents the environmental groups that sued, said the nonprofits are “thrilled” by the shift in the proposal, particularly the recognition of the Southern Rockies habitat as critical for the first time.
The high-elevation peaks there, he said, are especially important for the species as snowpack dwindles at lower elevations due to climate change.
“They really need mature, multistory forests with lots of horizontal cover, and these Rocky Mountain conifer forests are sort of ideal for them,” he said.
About 200 Canada lynx were reintroduced to the San Juan Mountains starting in the late 1990s. Some spread into New Mexico and today scientists estimate the region is home to between 75 and 150 resident lynx.
Bishop said the new critical habitat designation are intended to ensure that the relatively small population remains resilient over the long-term. They may mean land managers need to consider lynx a factor in assessments of future logging projects or ski area expansions.
One of the biggest challenges for the Canada lynx is its high dependence on snowshoe hares for the majority of its diet.
“Long legs, large feet. I mean, they’re really refined in their physical development to hunt hares in deep snow,” said John Squires, a biologist at the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station who has studied lynx for decades.
However, the boreal forests where both lynx and snowshoe hares live are increasingly threatened by disturbances such as wildfires, droughts and forest beetle infestations.
Bishop said his law firm and the environmental organizations it represents will continue fighting for lynx even if President-elect Trump doesn’t move the protections forward.
“We’re just doing everything we can to limit the non-climate stressors and give this species a chance to still survive, and exist and recover in the West,” he said.
The USFWS is accepting public comments on the new critical habitat designations until Jan. 28.
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