Feds release first lynx recovery plan
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) On Friday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a court-ordered recovery plan for Canada lynx and has revised its designation of critical lynx habitat in the lower 48 states. A 60-day comment period began Friday, and the public has until Jan. 28, 2025, to comment on the proposed plan before it is finalized.
The Service listed lynx as threatened in 2000 and designated critical habitat in 2006 but didn’t publish a recovery plan until now. A series of lawsuits prompted the agency to revise the critical habitat designation among other things. After completing a species status assessment in 2017, the agency moved to delist the lynx even though it had no recovery plan detailing criteria to delist the species. Another lawsuit prompted this recovery plan.
Canada is home to the majority of lynx, but there are five areas south of the Canadian border with known lynx populations that are protected under the Endangered Species Act: Maine, northeastern Minnesota, the Colorado Rockies, the Northern Rockies of Montana and the Washington state Cascades. The Colorado population has lynx that were transplanted in the early 2000s. The Greater Yellowstone region has no known breeding population, but the area has suitable lynx habitat and the Fish and Wildlife Service considers it important for lynx connectivity to the Colorado population.
It’s important for all the existing populations and the existing habitat to remain, according to the recovery plan. The plan requires that one population with high resiliency should endure for the next 20 years - two lynx generations - within Maine, Minnesota and one of the Western areas. In addition, the populations in the other two Western areas should at least have moderate resiliency.
Resiliency is the ability of a population to persist over time, in spite of occasional ups-and-downs. Larger populations, better habitat and secure connections to other populations tend to increase resiliency.
Only Maine currently has a secure population size with an estimated 750 individuals, although the recovery plan noted that better methods are needed for estimating lynx population sizes. It also has good connections to Canadian populations and a large amount of habitat, although 90% of it is privately owned. The Northern Rockies in Montana has an estimated 200 lynx, which is rated only moderately resilient, but habitat size and connection to Canadian populations are rated “high.”
Those population numbers must be maintained as minimum averages over 20 years. In addition, permanent loss of identified lynx habitat can’t exceed 5% within the next 20 years. Permanent loss means the forest cannot be recovered to a state that can support lynx.
“It acknowledges that some anthropogenic changes will likely occur within lynx habitat resulting in permanent habitat loss, which could include residential and commercial developments, highways, and silvicultural treatments that permanently convert boreal or subalpine forest to non-lynx habitat. Thus, future losses of some lynx habitats are likely unavoidable and increases in the geographical extent of areas containing the abiotic and biotic features necessary to sustain resident breeding populations are unlikely in the contiguous United States,” the report says.
Third, there is the requirement for connectivity, which must be maintained between Canada and the northern U.S. populations and between the northern and southern U.S. populations. Connectivity is maintained by “ensuring habitat remains permeable for lynx with no major barriers to movement, such as highways or large blocks of non-habitat.”
Lynx tend to be solitary and are highly dependent on snowshoe hare and require wooded habitat where snowy winters enable them to hunt their prey. They were originally listed due to a lack of regulatory protections for lynx habitat and trapping threatened the cats themselves.
In the recovery plan, the Fish and Wildlife Service said federal land management plans have since put protections in place, and they would have to remain in place and be updated with any new scientific information for the next 20 years before delisting would be considered. Plus the states need to do their part.
“State regulations can and should influence lynx conservation on both State and private lands. State wildlife management regulations should continue to minimize the potential for incidental take (including death or injury) of lynx during legal trapping of other furbearers,” the recovery plan says.
But those criteria may be difficult to meet as climate change is becoming a greater threat. A court-ordered 2023 addendum to the 2017 lynx species status assessment found that prevailing temperatures would get too warm in half of the lynx areas by mid-century, and only a few spots in the north would remain habitable for lynx by the end of this century, “regardless of the climate scenario.”
Warming will cause changes in habitat conditions, particularly decreases in the amount and duration of snow and increased wildfire and forest insect activity. Lynx are less able to adapt to rapidly changing conditions brought on by climate change because they are highly specialized, needing special prey, habitat and cold snowy conditions, and because their populations are small and they have low genetic diversity.
And even though they can disperse long distances, “projected warming is anticipated to cause a gradual but steady decline in the amount and quality of habitats within and outside the (lynx) units, likely reducing connectivity to Canada and connectivity among DPS populations,” according to the recovery plan.
“The recovery actions in this recovery plan, and the associated recovery activities listed in the recovery implementation strategy, are intended to improve the ability of the (U.S. lynx) to withstand catastrophic events and long-term environmental change. However, absent progress on reducing projected global warming trends, the long-term conservation of lynx in the contiguous United States remains uncertain,” the recovery plan states.
For more information and to access the full recovery plan and proposed critical habitat revision, go online to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Canada Lynx page.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.
