Yellowstone National Park: The National Park Service announced that wildlife technicians have identified a female Canada lynx and her kitten in the central portion of Yellowstone National Park. DNA evidence of the rare cats was found while conducting a survey to detect lynx in the park's interior.

This finding is important because the lynx, a shy, secretive carnivore, closely related to the bobcat, is rare in the Yellowstone Ecosystem. In fact, hard evidence of their existence in Yellowstone has been close to nonexistent in recent years and wildlife biologists have feared that they had disappeared from the park altogether. The Yellowstone Lynx Project, funded largely by the nonprofit Yellowstone Park Foundation, has been seeking to determine whether Yellowstone has a resident population of this elusive animal. The finding of a female and her offspring is evidence that the animals are resident rather than transient.

This past winter, project technicians working on skis, identified a lynx family using measurements and plaster casts of their tracks in snow as well as photographs that revealed the size of the cats' foot prints and bed sites. Based on the disparate size of the large and small print tracks they left, it was determined that at least two animals were traveling together - one adult and one juvenile. In early May of 2003, the Carnivore Conservation Genetics Laboratory at the University of Montana at Missoula, confirmed the DNA from hair and fecal samples collected along the tracks were lynx. One sample was from a male lynx, apparently the kitten.

"This finding is significant because breeding Canada lynx are very seldom documented in the Yellowstone Ecosystem," said Kerry Murphy, the wildlife biologist who manages the Yellowstone project. He also noted that the Canada lynx are among the most endangered mammals in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. "Our findings, combined with those of the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and Grand Teton National Park, give hope that this species will not be lost from this area," said Murphy. U.S. Forest Service and Wyoming Game and Fish biologists monitored a small lynx population in the adjacent Bridger-Teton National Forest during the late 1990s, but this small population seems to have disappeared from that area. In 2000, the Canada lynx was federally listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

While this female lynx and her kitten represent the best evidence found thus far, the Yellowstone Lynx Project personnel made other discoveries leading up to this one. Hair samples were collected from a female lynx at a rubbing station, a hair collection device, in the summer of 2001 and from another lynx just outside the park this past winter. Both hair samples were confirmed by the Carnivore Conservation Genetics Laboratory to be from lynx.

The Yellowstone Park Foundation began raising funds for the Yellowstone Lynx Project in 2000. The Foundation's board felt it was an important study to support because no previous research had been conducted to determine whether transient or resident lynx populations exist in Yellowstone. "If resident lynx are found to be present in Yellowstone," said Lisa Diekmann*, Executive Director of the Yellowstone Park Foundation, "we hope that what researchers learn about the population will be helpful to biologists and land managers in preventing the extinction of this rare and beautiful animal." The Foundation raised more than $200,000 from several sources, including the Bernice Barbour Foundation, Camp Fire Conservation Fund, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Earth Friends, and the National Park Foundation, to supplement National Park Service funds.

Facts on Canada lynx:

• Adult male lynx weigh about 30 lbs, females about 23 lbs.

• They are generally gray in color and have blunt tails and prominent tufted ears.

• Because they are similar in appearance to bobcat, it is difficult to determine the status of lynx in Yellowstone by sightings alone.

• Their primary prey are snowshoe hare, red squirrels, voles, and carrion.

• Lynx have large legs and broad, well-furred paws, making them well-adapted for traveling in deep snow.

• Limited studies suggest that lynx breed in April or May, and give birth to three to five kittens in late May or June.

• Lynx, like bobcats and mountain lions, typically travel alone, although females travel with their kittens and siblings may travel together after breaking away from their mother.

• Lynx in Wyoming range over 40-50 square miles in a year, and travel an average of 1-3 miles during a 24 hour period.

• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) determined that lynx were historically resident in 16 of the contiguous United States, and that they currently occur at low levels in Montana, Washington, and Maine.

• According to the USFWS, they are rare in Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Utah, Colorado, Vermont, and New Hampshire, and have been extirpated from New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.