Protected areas provide habitat for threatened lynx, but wildfire poses risks

FORT COLLINS, Colo., January 6, 2025 — Canada lynx are specialized hunters, able to travel in deep snow and spot prey in the darkness from 250 feet away. Keen hearing and vision make them excellent trackers, but what do we learn by turning the tables and tracking them? Scientists are using GPS data and advanced modeling to refine maps and identify important habitat characteristics, particularly in the forests of western Colorado, southern Wyoming, and northern New Mexico, the southernmost extent of its range.

New research and updated maps show that more than half of lynx habitat in the southern Rocky Mountains overlaps protected areas like wilderness and national parks. The maps also show that lynx habitat is sparse, patchy, and poorly connected, existing only in narrow bands due to Colorado’s complex mountainous terrain. These maps can identify corridors where habitat loss affects animal movement, which is important for healthy populations. Updated maps help managers focus conservation efforts and pinpoint places to promote new habitat, especially given the frequency of human development, fire, and forest insect outbreaks near the edges of lynx range.

Lynx in the western US prefer high elevation spruce-fir forests with tree branches hanging close to the snow or ground surface, providing dense horizontal cover. This forest structure supports the cat’s favorite prey, snowshoe hares, which can make up 90 percent of their diet in winter. Lynx were reintroduced to the southern Rockies over two decades ago, after populations had fallen below a self-sustaining level. Several generations of females and kittens have successfully established here, allowing these populations to bounce back.

Researchers used GPS collars to track lynx within the study area, focused on the southern extent of its range. They also considered over 40 habitat or environmental characteristics, such as the amount of precipitation as snow versus rain, the month with the coldest temperature, road density, vegetation, and slope position. Combining GPS and habitat data and using state-of-the-art statistical tools and modeling methods, these scientists identified which characteristics best predicted where lynx were found and used this information to map “likely” lynx habitat where cats have a high probability of living, breeding, and successfully raising young.

Then they took this information one step further, comparing “likely” habitat with disturbances like insect outbreaks, wildfire, timber harvest, or human-footprint impacts such as urbanization or ski resorts. The scientists found that around one-third of likely habitat overlapped with disturbance, including forest insect outbreaks (31 percent), wildfire (5 percent), and forest management activities like tree harvest and prescribed burning (3 percent). Despite the greater overlap of lynx habitat with insect outbreaks, the scientists are more concerned by the impacts of severe wildfires.

“We know that lynx continue to occupy areas after insects kill the overstory trees during spruce-beetle outbreaks. Forests impacted by spruce beetles still have enough young conifer trees in the understory to support hares,” said Dr. John Squires, the study's principal investigator and a Rocky Mountain Research Station research wildlife biologist. “Also, some tree species like subalpine fir often survive spruce beetle attacks. That means that forest insects represent a more benign threat to lynx compared to broad-scale, high-severity wildfire.”

The researchers found that lynx tend to avoid fire-impacted areas until the understory has regrown–a process that takes upwards of 50 years in subalpine forests in the southern Rockies, where fires tend to burn less frequently than lower elevation forests and are often stand-replacing.

“Although fire disturbance from 1990-2022 overlapped only 5 percent of likely lynx habitat in this area, we believe that frequent, high-severity fire is the main risk to lynx in high-elevation forests moving forward,” continued Squires.

“We were surprised at how little lynx habitat overlapped areas of managed forest and human development,” said Dr. Lucretia Olson, study coauthor and a Rocky Mountain Research Station ecologist. “While forest management mainly causes temporary habitat changes, activities like urbanization and developing or expanding ski areas often lead to permanent losses. We hope our work will reach managers who make complex decisions about land uses.”

Squires stressed the value of partnerships for conducting this research: “Close collaboration across state and federal agencies in terms of data sharing, logistical support, and added expertise made this research possible.”

Authors of this research include John Squires and Lucretia Olson of the Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Jacob Ivan of Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Peter McDonald of the Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region, and Joseph Holbrook of the University of Wyoming. For more information about this research, please refer to the scientific publication or visit the webpage for the Canada Lynx of the Rockies Research Program.