Canada Lynx

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Canada Lynx

Distinguished by their long ear tufts and black-tipped tail, lynx are often mistaken for their cousin, the bobcat. Their large, furry paws act like snowshoes by distributing their weight to help keep them from sinking too deeply in the snow.

Canada lynx have a short body, small tail and long legs. Their ear tufts act as hearing aids, and their eyesight is excellent—lynx can spot a mouse 75 metres away. They do most of their hunting at dawn and dusk. They’re patient, sometimes sitting still for hours to catch their prey. Their preferred prey is the snowshoe hare, but they will also eat squirrels, mice and birds. However, any time the snowshoe hare populations dip every 10 years, the lynx population does, too.

Canada lynx are solitary cats, found primarily in Canada’s north, in the boreal forest, making their dens beneath fallen trees, tree stumps, rock ledges or thick bushes. For now, the lynx population is stable, but it is feeling the pressure of human encroachment. They need large tracts of connected conifer-dominated forest to thrive, but habitat loss and a changing climate threaten the lynx along with Canada’s other northern species.

Lynx are provincially endangered in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Photo 1: Photo by KenCanning, Photo 2: Photo by Mike Dembeck, Photo 3: Photo by Mike Dembeck, Photo 4: Photo by Mike Dembeck