Brief by Central Staff
Wildlife – December 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
Back in our February edition, writer Allen Best reported that Colorado’s imported lynx were “feeding but not breeding.” According to the Colorado Division of Wildlife, that’s still the situation.
In 1999 and 2000, the state imported 96 Canadian lynx and released them along the Continental Divide, from the Vail area south to the San Juans.
As of Nov. 10, at most 53 of those lynx remain, spread across 10,000 square miles. Wildlife trackers found no kittens last summer, and the animals appeared to be moving around normally — if they had kittens, they’d stay put for a while.
“Maybe we missed something,” said Tanya Shenk, the state biologist in charge of the project, “or they mated later than we anticipated.”
She said that bringing in another 150 lynx would bring population densities to levels comparable with Canada and Alaska, where the lynx thrive.
“Let’s give this experiment everything we can to make it a success,” she said. And if the animals still don’t reproduce, then it would be time to re-evaluate the program.
But there may not be enough money for more lynx in these tough times, according to Rick Enstrom, chairman of the Wildlife Commission. Most lynx funding comes from Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO), which uses lottery money. The lynx program costs about $350,000 a year.
Lynx were never abundant in Colorado, at least during historic times, and the last confirmed sighting of a wild lynx was in 1973 near Vail.
