AR-News: Canadian lynx augmenting Colo. population

[jim robertson]

Canadian lynx augmenting Colo. population
By Associated Press
January 18, 2004

DENVER — Wildlife managers are hoping to boost the population of Colorado's 
thriving transplanted lynx population by 60 percent with animals trapped in 
Canada this winter.

The state Division of Wildlife hopes that 50 lynx from Manitoba, British 
Columbia and Quebec will raise the number known to be in the wilds of 
Colorado from 78 adults and 16 kittens to more than 150.





"We will make the release in April, after we fatten up the animals that are 
brought here," said Division of Wildlife spokesman Todd Malmsbury.

The project began in 1999 and 2000, when 96 animals were released in 
Colorado. Last year, 33 were released, and officials hope to release an 
additional 50 this spring.

The good news last year was the birth of the kittens — a first in Colorado.

Tanya Shenk, research leader, said that biologists documented nine pairs of 
lynx during breeding season last spring, and found six dens and 16 kittens 
last summer in the core research area in the Weminuche Wilderness Area in 
southwestern Colorado.

Of those, seven were males and seven were females. The gender of the other 
two was uncertain.

After getting off to a rocky start, with many of the first animals released 
dying of starvation, the wildlife division refined its techniques by 
fattening the animals on chickens before turning them loose.

The main prey for lynx are snowshoe hares, but in Colorado, they have 
adapted to such species as birds, ground squirrels, other rodents and other 
small mammals.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management issued 
a draft environmental-impact statement for recovery of lynx on federal lands 
in Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming.

It eases some of the restrictions the agency had proposed on logging, 
snowmobiling and grazing that were meant to protect lynx habitat.

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