The Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) is a remarkable native cat. Although it resides in relatively large numbers in the Northern Rockies and throughout Alaska and western Canada, its distribution once extended to other parts of the country, including the Southern Rockies. However, due to trapping and shooting pressure, habitat degradation, highway mortality, and other impacts, the lynx was driven to the brink of extinction, if not beyond, in the Southern Rockies.

The centerpiece of our Southern Rockies work is the Lynx Conservation Campaign, an ambitious, collaborative effort to recover the Canada lynx in the Southern Rockies. We launched this campaign last year with Sinapu and other groups and have celebrated a string of important victories despite continued sharp opposition from a small but politically powerful constituency. One major victory involved our killing an effort to illegally reduce ESA protection for the lynx in Colorado. Second, we secured passage of a Colorado Division of Wildlife plan to release 150-180 more lynx in the state over three to five years, a critical step in increasing the likelihood that the reintroduced lynx population becomes permanently established. We are now celebrating the birth of more than 100 lynx kittens over the past several summers, the first known wild lynx reproduction in Colorado in decades.

While the lynx release program has enjoyed considerable success, especially this year, the state and federal governments must now ensure that lynx habitat is sufficiently protected. For example, each of the lynx dens that produced kittens this year was found in an area with dead and downed wood, but salvage logging projects threaten to remove this important lynx habitat component from several Colorado forests. CNE is working to ensure that the federal agencies' actions provide for lynx habitat needs so that this population may one day be self-sustaining.