Slow-rolling lynx recovery

MONTANA FREE PRESS • December 4, 2020

A coalition of conservation organizations has sued the U.S. Department of Interior and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on grounds that the government has failed to prepare a recovery plan for Canada lynx a full 20 years after the species was designated as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The lawsuit also claims that the government’s 2017 finding that the cats are recovered has no scientific support. Lynx are vulnerable to habitat loss and fragmentation due to logging, road building and development. Climate change poses a serious threat to lynx viability by reducing snowpack in the forests that lynx inhabit.