Urban Wildlife

Current News from Canadian Wildlife

questions Kerry Banks:

How Do You Study an Animal You Can't Track?

The May/June issue (all photos in colour) is my favourite magazine!

The grey whiskered facial cat face on the cover ~ I'd adopt any day ~

until I realized this was no tabby ~ it was a lynx!

Lovingly, he looked at me ~ his green eyes peering into my 'blues'.

Although 'forest felines,' they are graceful, ferocious and

notoriously hard to study.'

“Lynx are unusually well-suited to the boreal winter
while being oddly dependent on a single species of prey.

Even the most experienced hunters rarely encounter one in the wild. The lynx's secretive nature...and a fur coat that changes with the seasons from a dapppled yellowish brown in summer to a silvery grey in winter allow it to blend seamlessly into its environment,” wrote Kerry Banks.

B.C. Photographer Sam Ellis discovered first-hand how difficult it is to photograph the ghost cat
when he was assigned the task of getting winter film footage of a Canada lynx in the southwest Yukon for a Canadian wildlife documentary in 2017. He and his assistant initially tried to follow lynx tracks from the backs of snowmobiles...but the animals kept doubling back over the machine tracks to obscure their trail. Ellis was then given telemetry gear by local biologists so he could track a lynx named Mad Max that was wearing a radio collar. “ Although the readings indicated that he was close by, we couldn't see him. It was incredibly frustrating,”says Ellis who would persist with his efforts and eventually establish a relationship with Mad Max over a span of 76 days to obtain the rare footage he sought.

About double the size of a domestic house cat, the lynz's physiology is distinctive thick fur with a stubby, black-tipped tail...powerful jackrabbit-like hind legs...ruffed face marked with ragged patches of fur that grow like a beard down its cheeks...large-tufted, triangular ears...enormous fur paws that allow it to chase down the fleetest prey even in the deep snow.
The oversized paws and the cat's dense insulating fur

make lynx ideally suited to thrive in winter conditions that hamper competing predators
such as wolves, foxes and coyotes, all of which struggle in the deep snow.

The cold-loving carnivore is also blessed with highly sensitive hearing
and super-sharp vision that enables it to spot summertime prey
as small as a vole or mouse at 75 metres.

Much of their hunting is conducted at twilight or at night.
During waking hours, they spend hours resting in the snow, creating ice-encrusted depressions where they digest their recent kills...and scan the surroundings for the next.

Lynx are found in all the Canadian provinces except Prince Edward Island and mainland Nova Scotia...with the highest concentration in The Yukon, British Columbia and Alberta.

So elusive are they...their true numbers are unknown.

Aside from their highly adapted physiques, the most remarkable thing
about lynx is their diet.

Most carnivores will eat a wide range of animals and carion.
The lynx's tastes are much more specific:

in winter, lynx rely almost exclusively on one species:

Snowshoe Hares...augmented by the occasional grouse or red squirrel.

Snowshoe Hares are feasted on by by an assortment of predators:

including wolves...coyotes...foxes...bobcats...goshoawks and owls.

At the peak of the lynx cycle, they turn out 2 to 4 litters in a year.

As constant predation induces stress in the hares...they produce fewer offspring:...and when the crash hits, young female lynx no longer bear kittens....and the litters of older females do not survive.

In the past, researchers would spend long hours tramping after lynx in snowshoes,.

By the recent introduction of cutting-edge-technology the 'tracking process'

opened an intimate view of the lynx's life cycle.

Each year, lynx are captured in box traps that have been baited with meat and shiny objects such as tinfoil or Cds that are suspended on fishing lines so that they spin in the wind. Glittering and irresistible, they lure the curious cats in for a closer look. Sometimes the objects are dabbed with scents like peppermint to enhance their appeal. Once captured, the animals are sedated and have a collar attached that functions almost like a Fitbit. These devices have satellite GPS for tracking movement and habitat selection...accelerometers for identifying activity patterns...and acoustic recorders for capturing interactions with prey and other predators. The activity monitor gives us an idea whether the lynx is walking...resting...eating...or grooming itself.

Biologists are able to listen in as a lynx chases down a snowshoe hare!

On the last day of shooting, Ellis said Goodbye to Max
and flew west for his next assignment in Anchorage, Alaska.

By an eerie coincidence, Max left the area the next day and vanished
from his radio collar's tracking range.

He materialized weeks later on a farm in Cordova, Alaska....
an amazing 550 kilometres from where Ellis had filmed him in Kluane...
but just 233 kilometres from Anchorage.
Max had killled a goat...and a farmer had cornered him in a chicken coop.
The farmer handed Max over to Alaska Fish and Game officials.

They contacted the Yukon researchers, sending his collar back.

They then put their own collar on Max and let him loose again.

Not long afterward, Ellis learned that Max's collar had stopped recording.

The collar was later found...cut off...and discarded in the woods.

Someone had trapped and shot Mad Max.

It was a sad ending ~ but thanks to the unique relationship
that Ellis developed with the lynx,

Mad Max endures in the stunning footage that Ellis captured.

(With many thanks to trackers on the trail...lynx in motion...and photographer Sam Ellis)

Lynx and the entire predator population of the boreal forest
would be in peril without a healthy hare cycle.

Written by Merle Baird-Kerr...May 26, 2020

Comments Welcome: mbairdkerr@cogeco.ca