The Canada lynx—classified as “threatened” in the contiguous United States under the Endangered Species Act— thrives in cold, snowy locales, where their snowshoe-like paws give the cats a crucial advantage in pursuit of prey.
In the U.S. the reclusive cat finds such conditions in northern latitudes and high spruce-fir forests. As with other mountain species, warming ecosystems may push the lynx—already down to about a thousand individuals in the lower 48 states—upward until they simply run out of room.
Populations in Canada have fared far better and are even large enough to withstand carefully regulated trapping in almost all provinces. But U.S. populations are isolated from each other by development—and becoming more so.
