Lynx research important for ‘big picture’ decisions

An incredible amount of work has gone into studying the threatened Canada lynx, a rare and snow-dependent cat whose southernmost habitat stretches into Montana in an area called the Southwestern Crown of the Continent, a vast region that forms the southern boundary of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and includes areas and communities within the Blackfoot, Clearwater and Swan River valleys.

Monitoring efforts formerly launched 22 years ago, and more recently a collaborative team of researchers supported and funded by the U.S. Forest Service, Swan Valley Connections, Rocky Mountain Research Station, the Nature Conservancy and others spent four years, from 2012 to 2016, tracking and monitoring lynx, wolverines and fishers to establish baseline data so changes over time can be tracked.

This baseline report was a jumping-off point for future projects when researchers again study these populations for fluctuations in numbers, adopted ranges, and more. This report is just one of multiple researchers have compiled, and will soon be followed by another as researchers wrap up their final year of monitoring how lynx and other rare carnivores move across landscapes that have been ravaged by wildfires.

The obvious question for the public is why pour resources into tracking such an elusive animal? Wildlife biologists have counted only 40 or so lynx in this vast region of Montana. Most of us will never see a lynx in the wild, so why does the lynx matter?

Inter Lake reporter Kianna Gardner has explored the goals of all of this research in a two-part series that wraps up in today’s edition.

The “big picture,” so to speak, is that researchers believe they can draw connections between wildfires and other points of study and future forest management activities such as logging, which can sometimes leave lands as barren as wildfires, Gardner’s report notes. Researchers hope the results of this new project that is coming to an end will inform forest management decisions in prime lynx habitat.

It makes sense that understanding how animals such as lynx survive on lands that have been burned or logged plays into the ultimate goals of land stewardship and conservation. Having this kind of comprehensive data will be crucial when it comes time to making decisions that impact lynx, whether it involves future logging operations or prescribed burns, or even the ultimate decision to remove the lynx from the Endangered Species List. In 2018 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Trump administration recommended removing federal protection for lynx.

We agree with these wildlife researchers, who have pointed out that any decisions affecting the fate of these rare carnivores should be one based on science, not politics.