Government Won't Declare Lynx Endangered

By ROBERT WELLER Associated Press Writer
FindLaw Legal News

6/29/03

DENVER (AP) - The government Friday rejected a demand by environmentalists to list the Canada lynx as an endangered species in the Lower 48 states.

The decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service means the tuft-eared cats with snowshoe-like paws will remain listed as threatened, a designation that provides less protection.

The decision was denounced by environmental groups that had won a court ruling forcing the government to review an earlier finding that an endangered listing was unwarranted.

"We don't dispute that the lynx seems to be doing better in the northern Rockies, and the Colorado reintroduction program seems to be gaining some ground. But lynx still appear to be in big trouble in the Great Lakes and the Northeast," said Mike Leahy, spokesman for Defenders of Wildlife in Washington.

Leahy said no decision had been made on whether to appeal.

There are fewer than 800 Canada lynx in the Lower 48 states, according to the Animal Protection Institute, a California environmental group. The species' range south of Canada extends across 14 states, from Washington to Colorado to Maine. It is not a threatened species in Alaska.

Federal law defines an endangered species as one in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range. A threatened species is one that is likely to become endangered.

Lori Nordstrom of the Fish and Wildlife Service in Helena, Mont., said the decision will give wildlife managers more flexibility in preserving the lynx or seeking to reintroduce it to its native areas. It will also allow the agency to write special rules that could, for example, permit the killing of lynx that prey on livestock.

Although Fish and Wildlife did not cite it as a factor in its decision, a program to reintroduce the lynx in Colorado has been successful. After a slow start in 1999, when four of the first five transplanted lynx died, at least 16 kittens have born this spring to lynx transplanted from Canada and Alaska.