As many of you know, Lynx have been successfully re-wilded back into Colorado..............A 15 year success story in the making since their San Juan Mountains re-introduction in 1999, Colorado Parks and Wildlife is in the midst of a new ten year study to determine how the animals fare during both flush and lean years for their primary prey, the snowshoe hare..........128 motion sensor cameras have been installed over a 5400 square mile region in the San Juan's as well as genetic testing being conducted to count individual animals via their fur and scat "footprint"............From 1999-2006, Colorado biologists determined that 30% of all Lynx deaths were due to human shooting and auto collisions,,,,,,,,,,,,,Disease and starvation accounted for another 19% of mortalities with 51% of deaths being of unknown origens..........To date, 70% of the Colorado Lynx diet is from snowshoe hare,,,,red squirrels forming 23% of their diet with various birds and other small mammals making up the remaining 7%............Perhaps 2nd in success to the Yellowstone re-wilding of Wolves in 1995, the Colorado Lynx restoration proves that it takes a lot of restored animals to create a sustaining and viable breeding population...........Of the 218 animals originally released into the state, 47% had perished over the first 6 years of the introduction before Lynx kittens began showing up..........Since 2007, Lynx have shown a stable breeding paradigm, something that this new current Study will look to reconfirm.

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A little lynx TLC

Tawny cats increasingly spotted around Silverton

By Dale Rodebaugh Herald staff writer

Article Last Updated: Wednesday, March 04, 2015 11:46pm

Keywords: San Juan County, Silverton, Coal Bank Pass,Molas Pass, Endangered species, Wildlife, San Juan National Forest,

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The Canada lynx – trapped, hunted and poisoned almost to the point of extinction in the late 1970s – today is one of the darlings in Colorado’s high-country forests.

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Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

One of three lynx seen just north of Molas Pass on Tuesday walks on 6 feet deep snow with its oversized paws, specially adapted for the task.

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Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

Lynx trapped in Canada and Alaska were released in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains beginning in 1999.

Enlarge photo

Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

Ideal lynx habitat is 8,000 feet in elevation and higher, which explains their presence around Silverton and Molas and Coal Bank passes.

Beginning in 1999, lynx trapped in Canada and Alaska were released in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. Under the Endangered Species Act, the lynx is listed as threatened by the feds and endangered by Colorado. It may not be hunted or trapped.

The kid-glove treatment has resulted in many sightings of latter-generation lynx around Silverton reported to Colorado Parks and Wildlife and Colorado Department of Transportation personnel.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife has initiated a 10-year study in seven wilderness area in Southern Colorado to monitor the progress of the species.

More facts you may not have known about lynx:

From 1999 to through 2008, 218 lynx with radio collars to track them were released in Colorado.

Ideal lynx habitat is 8,000 feet in elevation and higher, which explains their presence around Silverton and Molas and Coal Bank passes.

They look bigger than they are because of their fur. Adults weigh only 20 to 30 pounds.

Breeding will occur in late winter and early spring, with a retreat to a den from late May into July when kittens are born. Females give birth to one to four kittens.

Enormous paws allow the lynx to scoot over snow to run down snowshoe hares, which account for 90 percent of their diet. They eat squirrels and birds as well.