Federal officials adopt lynx recovery plan, seek changes to habitat designations
A Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis). (Photo courtesy Keith Williams/U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this week released a final recovery plan for Canada lynx, a threatened, snow-adapted species partial to northern forests.
Recovery plans are sometimes called “roadmaps to recovery.” Federal wildlife managers use them to outline risks to a threatened or endangered species’ survival and identify objective criteria for measuring recovery efforts.
Threats to Canada lynx that USFWS identified in its recovery plan include a reduction of habitat in the western U.S. that’s capable of sustaining populations of resident lynx and a warming climate that’s reducing the wintertime conditions lynx rely on to hunt snowshoe hare, a rabbit that accounts for most of the lynx’s winter diet.
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