Eighteen national forests across the West are adopting “management direction” to protect the Canada lynx. I got a copy of this decision on Friday. The maps shows the “core” lynx habitat to be pretty much the same as the Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear and Northern Continental Divide grizzly bear habitat.
Except for two tiny areas, Idaho is classified as “secondary” or “peripheral habitat,” although the map shows huge areas on Idaho national forests that are “unoccupied lynx habitat,” which is a bit puzzling to me.
Here is the story in the Jackson Hole News and Guide. Lynx decision. By Cory Hatch.
The major impacts on human use will be on the type and areas where forest thinning takes places and a prohibition of new snowmobile routes (but not on open snowmobiling). Packed snowmobile trails give a winter advantage to coyotes and bobcats, animals that have relatively smaller feet than lynx.
