Most of their lives are spent stalking the snowshoe hare - their favorite prey - in the dense thickets of the northern boreal forest. There are no solid estimates of how many roam the backcountry of Montana or other northern tier and western states that the smallish cat calls home.
But there's the worry that what remains isn't enough.
It was a move that officials doubt will mean much in the long run for the lynx.
“It's been our conclusion that the critical habitat designation doesn't produce many additional benefits for a species,” said Lori Nordstrom, the Fish and Wildlife Service's lead lynx biologist stationed in Helena. “It does require that federal land management agencies consult with us before doing a project that may affect lynx habitat.”
In most cases, that consultation is already occurring through other requirements of the Endangered Species Act, she said.
Most private landowners won't notice the difference. The only folks who may be affected by the designation are the few who receive federal funds or require some form of federal permit for work on their property, Nordstrom said.
After 30 years of working to recover species under the Endangered Species Act, Nordstrom said the service has learned that voluntary cooperative partnerships work far better than adding another layer of regulation.
Still, some environmental groups want the service to do more than just satisfy legal requirements when designating critical habitat.
“The service includes the same boilerplate language in every critical habitat designation. As a general matter, we don't agree with it,” said Michael Senatore of Defenders of Wildlife.
The Defenders of Wildlife and other groups sued the government in 2000 to force the lynx to be listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The group also disagrees with the service's decision to drop thousands of acres of national forest lands from the critical habitat designation. Those lands were excluded after the Forest Service developed an interim plan to protect lynx habitat.
“The fact of the matter is that protections offered under the critical habitat designation aren't redundant to those found in a national forest plan,” Senatore said.
The lynx's best hope may come from a better understanding of what the secretive cat needs to survive.
Researchers like John Squires of the Rocky Mountain Research Center are working to uncover those secrets. Since 1998, Squires has led the largest study in the lower 48 states in the Seeley-Swan area.
Tracking lynx fitted with radio collars, Squires and his team are taking a hard look at how lynx use the countryside, where they den and how many kittens they bear. His research should help public lands managers put together long- range plans that will protect habitat important to the lynx.
“A lot will hinge on the studies that are currently going on,” Nordstrom said.
When the Fish and Wildlife Service opted to list the lynx in 2000 after being sued, the national forests in the cat's home range didn't have specific protections built into their long-range plans.
Since then, seven national forests in Montana, Idaho and Washington developed a conservation agreement in 2005 as a stopgap measure to protect lynx habitat until long-range plans can come online.
All of that may be key to getting to the point where the lynx will be delisted, Nordstrom said.
There's still plenty to learn.
For instance, in their stronghold - the thick boreal forests of Canada - lynx populations closely mirror the numbers of snowshoe hare.
“Researchers can really track that cycle there,” she said. “It doesn't seem to show up as strongly here in the lower 48.”
In other areas around the country, researchers are just beginning to discover more about the cat, which typically weighs somewhere between 18 and 23 pounds.
“At the time they were listed, we really didn't know very much about lynx in Minnesota and Maine,” said Nordstrom.
It now appears that the lynx is making a respectable comeback in the forests of Maine, which are just now recovering from heavy clearcuts two decades back.
“The clearcuts may have created better habitat for the snowshoe hare and that in turn is helping the lynx rebound,” said Nordstrom.
There's a bit of a fine line that land managers have to traverse when managing landscapes for lynx. The snowshoe hare likes the dense understory of spruce and fir forests and thinning projects can impact that habitat. At the same time, too dense of an understory can add to the potential for fire and the spread of disease in the forest canopy.
There are a number of management activities that can impact lynx habitat. Besides logging, which the service says could harm or benefit lynx, other activities that could impact the cat include road work on federal lands and expansion of government regulated ski areas.
Any change in management on federal lands is suspect from folks trying to make their living in the woods, said Ellen Engstedt, executive vice president of the Montana Woods Products Association.
“The whole ESA is real challenging for those of us in the timber community,” said Engstedt. “Every time more land is taken out of the potential base for timber harvest, we take another hit at what we can accomplish on the ground.”
The number of hoops that the industry needs to jump through before getting a timber sale approved continues to grow, she said.
“We're about layered out,” said Engstedt. “Every tweak here and there just makes it more and more restrictive for us. In the meantime, the land resource is suffering because there's no management happening on the ground.”
Comments welcome
Montanans will have an opportunity to comment on the proposed critical habitat designation on Tuesday, Jan. 10, at the Westcoast Kalispell Center, 20 N. Main St., in Kalispell. The hearing will run from 6 to 8 p.m. An information session will be held between 4:30 and 6 p.m.
Public comments on the proposed rule will be accepted through Feb. 7, 2006. Written comments can be submitted via e-mail to FW6_lynx@fws.gov or mailed to the Montana Field Office, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 100 N. Park Ave., Suite 320, Helena, MT 59601.
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