Canada Lynx

By Tobi McIntyre
January 1, 2010

Canada Lynx

 

This secretive, hard-to-spot resident of Canada’s boreal forest is likely a descendant of the Eurasian lynx. Lynx are listed as threatened in the contiguous United States, but the Canadian lynx population seems to be secure, although it undergoes periodic dramatic fluctuations tied directly to numbers of snowshoe hare, its main prey.

 

Canada Lynx Fact File

Scientific name: Lynx canadensis

Average weight: eight to 14 kilograms

Average length: 90 centimetres

Lifespan: 15 to 20 years

Appearance: The lynx resembles a very large domestic cat. It has a short tail, long legs, large feet and prominent ear tufts. Its winter coat is light grey and slightly mottled with long guard hairs; the under-fur is brownish, and the ear tufts and tip of the tail are black. The summer coat is much shorter than the winter coat and has a definite reddish-brown cast.

Range: virtually the same as the range of the boreal forest, stretching from the Yukon to Newfoundland and down into the Rockies in the U.S.

 

Did You Know?

- The lynx can be distinguished from a bobcat by its larger body and feet, as well as its tail, which has a pronounced black tip.

- It favours old-growth boreal forests with a dense undercover of thickets and windfalls.

- The lynx has a variety of vocalizations, like those made by house cats, but louder.

- More than 75 per cent of the lynx’s diet in winter is snowshoe hares; when hares are abundant, a lynx may kill one every day or two. In summer, the lynx’s diet is more varied.

- Not an especially good runner except over short distances, the lynx stalks or ambushes its prey at close range and often at night.

- Mating occurs during February or March each year, and the young (usually four) are born in April and May.

- Human settlement does not seem to have reduced the lynx’s range.