Monthly Archives: February 2012

Lynx in Idaho and Other Lynx Links

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lynx in snowThe first Canada lynx in Idaho in over 15 years was inadvertently caught in a leg-hold trap, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game said on Tuesday.

Read the article in the Chicago Tribune, here. The Idaho Dept. of Fish and Game release is here.

Elsewhere in the West, The Denver Post says that:

“Federal lawyers have backed away from fighting a federal judge’s ruling that favors lynx, clearing the way for possible broader protection of the quick-pawed predators in Colorado and other Western states.”

The article goes on to say that the Colorado Division of Wildlife didn’t wait for the federal critical habitat designation. They’ve already reintroduced lynx to the state.

Read the whole article in The Denver Post, here.

Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, there is evidence that the state’s lynx population is growing. (Growing from zero to something, maybe.) Read the blog entry in the Concord Monitor, here.

In Maine, they have so many lynx (600-1,200) that keeping them out of bobcat traps is becoming a problem. Recently, six lynx were trapped and another was killed. Read the story in the Bangor Daily News.

Lynx photo courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Pythons Devouring Everglades

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Small mammals have been almost completely wiped out in the Everglades by invasive pythons, a study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said Monday.

If this sounds like journalistic exaggeration to you, it did to me too. Doubting the news reports, I went straight to the open access PNAS paper (in early release). Surveys from 2003 to 2011, the paper says, saw a:

“…99.3% decrease in the frequency of raccoon observations, decreases of 98.9% and 87.5% for opossum and bobcat observations, respectively, and failed to detect rabbits.”

Why should you care? Check out this map of potential python habitat in the U.S. Though many doubt pythons will spread out of south Florida, the risk is there.

Read the PNAS paper here. (A PDF)

Read the US Geological Survey press release here.

A story in the Washington Post is here. Google says that there were over 700 news reports on this. Here’s another from The Atlantic Magazine’s blog AtlanticWire.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service recently banned the important and interstate transport of pythons and other constrictors. Read more about that here.

Photo by Mike Rochford , University of Florida, used courtesy of the US Geological Survey