Two radio collared lynx have been shot in the last two weeks on southwestern Colorado. A $5000 reward is being offered for information
Wild Again has the full story.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
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A $5,000 reward? Great. But most state-level fines for poaching of more abundant critters, like white-tailed deer in the East, are the equivalent of a few traffic citations. I often wonder just how many hawks and owls are gunned down and no one other than the shooter ever knows.
Poor darn Lynx!!!
Along that line – four moose have been “accidentally” shot in Teton County Wyoming this hunting season by stupid, truly dim-witted, people holding elk licenses. The fine for this stupidity is usually only $750.00, while a non-resident moose permit goes for $1,201.00. Now figure THAT out. Doesn’t address how many other “mistakes” go unreported.
The basic problem is these fools are not even able to tell a moose from an elk. These were all Wyoming residents, who you might think would know a moose doesn’t look much at all like an elk. But for the grace of God these dumb SOB’s didn’t shoot a person instead.
These same good ole boys will tell you any night at the Cowboy Bar, “Them dang wolves are eatin all our moose”….
Thanks for the update, Bob.
Here in Idaho the old joke is always told about some idiot from California dressing out a mule, thinking it was an elk or a moose, but the truth is some local folks have no clue.
One word spells the death of the world.
Dominion.
This single idea, let loose upon the world in an earlier age describes all the horrors that Homo Sap. has visited on the other
creatures that inhabit the planet with us. Until we control our numbers and greed, naught wil arise but the death of Giai…
The interesting question is: are collared lynx being targeted by someone with a directional reciever or is it just that the collared ones are the only ones they find. Radio collars in use today are not encrypted or otherwise secure so someone with an axe to grind or a rocket science approach to poaching can easily track any collared critter once a frequency list is hacked. Even more simple is the use of a broad spectrum directional reciever that will pick up all rf signals in the frequency bands used for collars in a limited geographic area. In the true wilderness, this could be very effective.
I think the lynx were specifically targeted by someone with a twisted agenda, and more than likely tracked them down by their radio signals. Lynx are just too rare and too secretive for two random killings to be very likely.
The “real” target is probably the ESA, out of state treehuggers, federal “intrusions”, etc. I can’t imagine that anyone regards the lynx as a threat to livestock, human safety, or game animal numbers…although maybe I’m giving the perps way too much credit…