B.C. Bound: The Incredible Journey

The cat came back. Only it wasn’t the very next day.

We’ve all heard stories about cats or dogs that embarked on epic journeys in search of a previous home. Now a Canada lynx is vying for Homeward Bound celebrity status.

The furry lynx was known to Canadian and American scientists as specimen BC-03-M-02. Captured near Kamloops in 2003, the lynx became part of a unique experiment. The young adult male was shipped to Colorado, where the last native lynx disappeared 40 years ago.   Colorado is by no means the only state that has lost its lynx; this white-tipped feline has vanished from most of the 16 contiguous U.S. states where it once thrived. Only three states still have lynx populations, albeit small ones, and all three of those (Washington, Montana and Maine) adjoin Canada, which offers more hospitable habitat and prey for the big-pawed cat--at least for now.

Photo: Bernard Landgraf, Wikimedia Commons

BC-03-M-02 did his job well, fathering six kittens with the same female (also reintroduced) in two successive litters in 2005 and 2006. The following year, with a radio collar attached to his neck, he vanished. There were no further signals. His fate remained a mystery for three years, until January 2010, when University of Alberta lynx researcher Gabby Yates received a phone call from a concerned Alberta trapper.

The trapper had discovered BC-03-M-02’s body in his trap line north of Banff National Park, 2,000 kilometers distant from the lynx’s last known coordinates. That lone lynx had journeyed across highways, mountains and desert, guided by an internal homing device more meaningful than any radio waves emitted by its man-made collar.

Like humans, a lynx needs a place to live and food to survive. U.S. lynx populations were decimated after critical habitat was lost to urbanization and industrial development. And then there’s the question of the lynx’s favourite food —snowshoe hare. If you’re concerned that your child is a picky eater, the lynx’s diet will quickly put things on the home front into perspective. When snowshoe hare populations plummet, lynx populations are not far behind. A lynx will go hungry and cease to reproduce rather than switch primary proteins. Not surprisingly, lynx are now listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Yet lynx populations remain healthy in B.C. One of the animal’s notable habitats is the Flathead River Valley in B.C.’s far southeast corner. Canadian Geographic magazine describes the Flathead as a “nursery, incubating wildlife that disperses and repopulates neighbouring habitats.” It’s no coincidence that Montana, one of the last bastions of lynx in the U.S., is only a pounce away from the B.C. Flathead. Last summer in the Flathead, at dusk, I saw handfuls of snowshoe hares munching on grasses. They were no longer decked out in white winter camouflage; their fur was a seasonal dusky brown, their elongated white paws the only hint of snow. Their presence was visible evidence of the healthy lynx population, hidden in the Flathead wilderness.

BC-03-M-02 no doubt followed a wildlife corridor winding through the Rocky Mountains and their valleys, encompassing the Flathead River Valley. It’s the longest wildlife corridor remaining on the North American continent. Significant parts of it are protected in Montana and Alberta, but the overall integrity of this wildlife thoroughfare is now under threat because a critical link -- B.C.’s Flathead River Valley -- lacks permanent protection.  Almost a century ago, Alberta and Montana took steps to protect wildlife permanently by creating Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, which later became a World Heritage Site and two UNESCO Biosphere Reserves.

In February, the B.C. government banned mining and energy development in the Flathead. Yet this valley and globally-significant wildlife corridor still lack permanent protection. Industrial logging, brand new road access approvals, and even a new proposed coal strip mine (in part of the wildlife corridor adjoining the Flathead Valley), are all in the works.

One of the world’s most critically endangered mammals is the Canada lynx’s European cousin, the Iberian lynx. Only 143 adults remain. That selective eater is dying out because its main prey, the European rabbit, is in short supply as a result of fast-shrinking habitat. There’s no reason for the Canada lynx to join the sorry collection of species – one-quarter of all mammals--at risk of extinction during our watch. We need only to look south to see how quickly that can happen if we don’t take action.

We can protect critical wildlife habitat in southeastern B.C. with a National Park in the south eastern one-third of the Flathead River Valley, as a long-overdue extension of Waterton-Glacier, and a Wildlife Management Area in the rest of the valley and adjoining habitat. We urgently need to do this not just for the Canada lynx, but for the plethora of other wildlife, including grizzlies and other rare and threatened species, which call this place home.