"Lynx spotted in northern NH"

And breeding!
Not such a surprise, but cool nonetheless!

Where's the photos?? Lynx as rare as albino whitetail..???

Here's the news release from NH Fish and Game from a few days ago, with links to downloadable pics: Canada Lynx Documented In Northern New Hampshire

At Galehead Hut a few months ago, someone mentioned seeing a large cat on the Twinway near Zealand Mt. and the hut "naturalist" was very quick to identify it as a lynx. I had my doubts...but this is good news.

Thank you for the additional link, sardog!!

yes thanks sardog1

I am pretty sure I saw one near the hatchery on 11/13 when I did the Weeks range. It ran across the trail near the Bunnell Notch / York Pond Jct. The size and color suggest lynx rather than bobcat, but I cannot be 100% sure.

Tim

bikehikeskifish said:

The size and color suggest lynx rather than bobcat, but I cannot be 100% sure.

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One way to distinguish them is lynx have tufts of black hair on the tips of their ears. .
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx for more info.

Doug

Sorry Doug, it did not roll over, purr and wait for a belly rub It was bigger than a bobcat and it did not appear to be canine or ursine.

Tim

bikehikeskifish said:

Sorry Doug, it did not roll over, purr and wait for a belly rub It was bigger than a bobcat and it did not appear to be canine or ursine.

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Sometimes you cannot make a positive ID.

In such cases, people often seem to be biased toward rare, exotic, or potentially threatening species...

Doug

The ear tufts are a pretty reliable field mark. The only time I've seen one in the wild was an encounter with one that was swimming across a lake on the MN/ON border. I thought it was a small moose calf at first, solely on the basis of the ear tufts that were visible from a distance.

We paddled over and took pictures of it alongside the canoe, as it swam determinedly for the other side of a long, narrow lake. Apparently walking around the end of the lake was the inferior choice.

DougPaul said:

In such cases, people often seem to be biased toward rare, exotic, or potentially threatening species...

Click to expand...

Perhaps you have a practical alternative?

It was running away from me. Since the ears and thus the tufts are on the front of the animal, and it wasn't running backwards, I can't use them for an ID. It was fluffy, not matted down at all. The coloring was gray-brown and lighter underneath. I used Wikipedia for help in identification. It looked remarkably like this Canada lynx:



I will never be certain, of course, but unless someone can convince me otherwise, I believe it was a legitimate sighting.

Tim

Regretably, I have never seen lynx nor bobcat in the wild, they are both elusive and swift ... though I suspect a flash I caught out of the corner of my eye might have been either. I have seen tracks in the snow, however, and from the size could have possibly been lynx ... after tracking it for a while concluded it might also be "sascats" ...

They are not at all unusual in Maine and have been known to be subjects of incidental trapping.

Very cool. Although it wasn't in New Hampshire, I can remember being "on patrol" on the Northway in far northern New York in the middle of the night about 15 years ago when a flash zoomed across our headlights. My partner said "Holy s*** what was that?" Without thinking, I said "I think it was a mountain lion." But as the years have passed and the image is still frozen in my mind, I'm pretty well convinced at this point it was a Canadian Lynx. Didn't have a tail and it was just a big ball of fur in full stride. Long, short, long, short. Strange. So anyway, in my own mind, I know they're around and likely in Northern NH, Vermont, NY and Maine as well.

I hate to tell you all this, but those of you who think lynx have ear tufts and bobcats do not are not quite correct. Bobcats absolutely have them, though they are often less obvious. In fact, one of the cats shown in this thread and referred to as a lynx is almost certainly a bobcat. I freely admit I have only seen bobcat in the wild, but I feel certain that I can identify them by photo with all of my training.

Color and pattern are HIGHLY variable in bobcats as well, and males can be quite large(upwards of 50 pounds), though 25 pounds is average. The height of a lynx, particularly its long legs are the best, as well as the size of the paws are the best indicators, but can be pretty difficult to single out during a brief encounter.

After Mr Falender managed to rile up NH politicians and had to justify AMC's continued operaton of the huts, the AMC was forced to do an extensive Environmental impact Study (EIS). This required determining the impact of the huts on the environment of the whites and one of the many animals they had to study was the Lynx. I no longer have a copy of the document, but my memory of the report was that Lynx were definitely expected to "visit" the whites but wouldnt establish a long term breeding population as the rabbit habitat was not extensive enough to support a lynx population during the inevitable population crashes that occur with rabbits on a cyclical basis. This was a convienient conclusion as had there been the possibility of a permanent population, the territory of the Lynx would overlap the footprint of some of the huts and the justification of the huts would have been more difficult.

I would speculate that like Maine, the Lynx are restablishing themselves in clearcuts as that is apparently their preferred grounds for raising young. I expect that with current forestry practices, they just move to another clear cut area when the one they are in grows up and loses its rabbit population. As the WMNF severely restricts cuts to mostly low altitude hardwoods, there arent going to be a lot of lynx around as the pickings are better elsewhere on private forest land

Anything TR Dillon touched should be great habitat for a while. Great habitat in Success and Jericho (which abuts the York Pond area).

I and co workers regularly see some huge bobcats and tracks on the Trails while cruising along in groomers in both areas.

Further complicating the ability to ID is that crossbreeding is possible. Maybe we'll have are own "eastern wildcat" like the eastern coyote.
I'm going to focus on the legs.

gaiagirl said:

I hate to tell you all this, but those of you who think lynx have ear tufts and bobcats do not are not quite correct. Bobcats absolutely have them, though they are often less obvious. In fact, one of the cats shown in this thread and referred to as a lynx is almost certainly a bobcat. I freely admit I have only seen bobcat in the wild, but I feel certain that I can identify them by photo with all of my training.

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This will come as news to the source for the photo to which you are apparently referring, which actually identifies the animal in question as a Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx).

As for the ear tufts as a field mark, see this at How To Avoid Incidental Take Of Lynx from the USFWS:

"Lynx have ear tufts and facial ruffs on their cheeks that are larger and more conspicuous than those on bobcats. Ear tufts are usually longer than 1 inch on lynx but shorter than 1 inch on bobcats."

Charismatic megafauna discovered in NH

Looks like F&G has found its own charismatic megafauna -- Special Fundraising Effort Underway to Document Canada Lynx in N.H..