These Two Angry, Yelling Lynx Are Probably Fighting About Sex

By Rafi Letzter, Staff Writer | May 22, 2018 03:19pm ET

Two lynx face off on the side of a road in Ontario. "RNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH," says one. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHNHHNHAAAHHH," says the other. "YYYYYYAAAAAAAHHHHHSSSSS," they say in unison, tapping their foreheads together before suddenly darting apart.

This fight, captured on video by passerby Edward Trist and shared on Twitter by the website Globalnews.ca, is truly strange to watch and listen to. And Luke Hunter, chief conservation officer for Panthera, the global wild cat conservation organization, said the spat is almost certainly about sex.

When an Ontario man came across two lynx staring each other down and shrieking at one another on a rural road, he took out his phone and recorded the encounter to post on Facebook. READ MORE: https://globalnews.ca/news/4222396/lynx-caught-on-video-wailing-at-each-other-in-ontario/ …

"Canada lynx, due to their harsh winters, are highly seasonal breeders, and this is right at the end of their usual breeding period," Hunter told Live Science.

Lynx breed mostly in the spring, finishing up in April or sometimes May, Hunter said. By summer, the females settle down to give birth, and any lynx that haven't bred have missed their shot. That means, he said, this is a time when lots of male and female lynx are out on the prowl, looking for that last shot at mating and the opportunity to parent a litter of kittens. And in this case, all those aroused feelings likely led the two animals to face off, he said.

"This is an amazing vocalization I've never heard from Canada lynx," Hunter said. "But it's basically the same thing [as in house cats] — this sort of very screechy vocalization that shows stress and is designed to intimidate the other animal." [20 Weird Dog and Cat Behaviors Explained by Science]

Watch video and read on:  

Cave Lion Mummy May Not Be What It Seems

By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | November 14, 2017 04:08pm ET

A Russian man hunting for mammoth tusks in Eastern Siberia made an unexpected discovery in September: the incredibly furry, slightly squished mummy of a cat from the last ice age. Scientists are celebrating the rare discovery, but they're not certain on one major point — whether the mummy is a cave lion cub or a lynx kitten, paleontologists told Live Science.

If the kitten is a lynx, it would be only the second species of its kind from the last ice age to be uncovered in Beringia, a region encompassing parts of Russia, Alaska and Canada, said Olga Potapova, the collections curator and manager at the Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, South Dakota, who is helping with the logistics of studying the new specimen.

People have spent at least 300 years collecting and studying frozen bones and mummies in Eastern Siberia, and "that yielded just one fossil bone of this [lynx] species," Potapova told Live Science in an email. So, "the find of the complete mummy of this species would be very surprising and interesting," she said. [Photos: Is Ice Age Cat Mummy a Lion or a Lynx?]

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'Hobby zoos' face calls for crackdown after second lynx dies at animal park home of Lillith

News of the accidental strangling of Nilly at Borth Wild Animal Kingdom comes after the shooting of escaped enclosure-mate Lillith the Lynx  

Adam Lusher 

The Independent Online

A Welsh zoo is facing calls to close after it emerged a second lynx was accidentally strangled in  “a terrible handling error” days before Lillith the lynx was shot and killed following her escape from the same attraction.

Borth Wild Animal Kingdom near Aberyswyth was branded a “hobby zoo” after news of the death of the second lynx emerged, throwing a spotlight on fears that at some UK animal attractions well-meaning but underqualified owners are failing to look after creatures properly.

Launching a petition for Borth to close in the light of the two deaths, the Lynx UK Trust, a conservation group working to reintroduce the lynx to Britain, accused the zoo’s management of having “little to no understanding of wild animal behaviour or welfare needs”.

Dr Paul O'Donoghue, Chief scientific adviser to the trust, added: “What if it had been Borth's crocodile that escaped? Or their two lions?  

“How long are we going to let these hobby zoos run by amateurs keep operating? Will it take the death of a human for someone to take action?"

News of the second lynx fatality came amid controversy over how one and a half-year-old Lillith was shot dead by a marksman on Friday, having been on the run since late October.  

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The lynx effect: search for one-year-old Lillith continues in west Wales

Borth Wild Animal Kingdom attracts large crowd of visitors as mother prowls cage while offspring eludes staff and police

Steven Morris

Monday 30 October 2017 18.10 GMTFirst published on Monday 30 October 2017 16.53 GMT

Zoo keepers kitted out with thermal imaging equipment, nets and cages baited with rabbit have been scouring a craggy hillside and the gardens of a seaside town in search of a wild cat that made a daring leap for freedom.

Lillith the Eurasian lynx is thought to have climbed a spindly sapling growing in the pen she shared with her mother and two siblings and dived over a 4-metre fence and two electrified wires, possibly as she chased a bird.

The year-old lynx – around twice the size of a domestic cat – has eluded the efforts of staff at the Borth Wild Animal Kingdom in west Wales and those of Dyfed-Powys police, who provided a helicopter to recapture her.

“We’re pretty sure we know roughly where she is,” said Dean Tweedy, who runs the small coastal zoo with wife, Tracy. “It’s a matter of tempting her back. It’s a waiting game. She’s never hunted for herself or ate live food so she’ll soon get hungry if she can’t catch rabbits or rodents.”

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Six of the secretive cats could be released in Northumberland’s Kielder forest if an application by the Lynx UK Trust is approved

Damian Carrington Environment editor

Friday 7 July 2017 15.39 BST Last modified on Friday 7 July 2017 22.00 BST

After an absence of 1,300 years, the lynx could be back in UK forests by the end of 2017. The Lynx UK Trust has announced it will apply for a trial reintroduction for six lynx into the Kielder forest, Northumberland, following a two-year consultation process with local stakeholders.

The secretive cat can grow to 1.5m in length and feeds almost exclusively by ambushing deer. Attacks on humans are unknown, but it was hunted to extinction for its fur in the UK. The Kielder forest was chosen by the trust from five possible sites, due to its abundance of deer, large forest area and the absence of major roads.

Sheep farmers and some locals are opposed to the reintroduction, but Dr Paul O’Donoghue, chief scientific advisor to the Lynx UK Trust and expert adviser to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) believes there are good reasons for reintroducing the predator.

 “Lynx belong here as much as hedgehogs, badgers, robins, blackbirds - they are an intrinsic part of the UK environment,” he told the Guardian. “There is a moral obligation. We killed every single last one of them for the fur trade, that’s a wrong we have to right.”

Rural communities would also benefit from eco-tourism, O’Donoghue said: “They will generates tens of millions of pounds for struggling rural UK economies. Lynx have already been reintroduced in the Harz mountains in Germany. They have branded the whole area the ‘kingdom of the lynx’. Now it is a thriving ecotourism destination and we thought we could do exactly the same for Kielder,” he said.

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Romania bans trophy hunting of brown bears, wolves, lynx and wild cats

Unexpected move reverses a trend that has seen increasing numbers of large carnivores shot by hunters each year since Romania’s accession to the European Union

 

Luke Dale-Harris

Wednesday 5 October 2016 16.08 BST Last modified on Thursday 6 October 2016 10.14 BST

Romania has banned all trophy hunting of brown bears, wolves, lynx and wild cats in a surprise decision that gives Europe’s largest population of large carnivores a reprieve from its most severe and immediate threat.

The move on Tuesday reverses a trend which has seen the number of large carnivores being shot by hunters grow year on year since Romania’s accession into the European Union in 2007. In 2016, the largest hunting quotas yet gave hunters the mandate to shoot 550 bears, 600 wolves and 500 big cats over 12 months. 

Over the last decade, hunting has grown into a multimillion-euro industry in Romania, with hunters from all over the world paying up to €10,000 (£8,800) to claim a ‘trophy’ – hunting parlance for the carcass of a hunted animal – from the Carpathian mountains. 

The government has claimed that in order to exist, the industry relies on a loophole in European law which allows for the culling of wild animals that have been proven to be a danger to humans. Under the habitats directive, all large carnivores are protected in European Union member states, yet the state can order the killing of specific animals if shown to have attacked a person or damaged private property.

“Hunting for money was already illegal, but it was given a green light anyway,” environment minster, Cristiana Pasca-Palmer, told the Guardian. ‘The damages [clause in the habitats directive] acted as a cover for trophy hunting.”

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Dangerous big cat on the loose after ESCAPING zoo as police put schools on alert

POLICE are hunting a dangerous lynx wild cat on the loose after it managed to escape from its new zoo enclosure one day after it arrived.

By REBECCA PERRING

PUBLISHED: 12:08, Thu, Jul 7, 2016 | UPDATED: 15:12, Thu, Jul 7, 2016

Devon and Cornwall Police have urged people not to approach the lynx "as it could become dangerous if alarmed or cornered".

The wild cat only arrived at Dartmoor Zoo on Wednesday, but zookeepers discovered it had dug itself out of its enclosure when they went to check on it at about 10.20am this morning. 

Schools have been placed on high alert following the incident. 

Officers confirmed helicopters are scouring the Plymouth area for the large wild cat, which is described as a grey/silver two-year-old male, bigger than the size of a large domestic cat, but smaller than a lion or tiger.

The lynx is a two-year-old male, approximately the size of a large domestic cat and is described as grey/silver in colour

Staff made the shock discovery when they went to check on how the animal was settling into its new home. 

Thirty members of frantic staff and volunteers searched the 33-acre park, but the animal is now thought to have left the grounds.

The zoo was closed as a precaution, as police launched a major hunt for the wild animal. 

Police have urged members of the public not to approach the animal "as it could become dangerous if alarmed or cornered".

The National Police Air Service (NPAS) helicopter has been deployed to assist with the search of the boundaries of the zoological park.

Officers have visited two local schools to offer safety advice and reassurance.

They are also working with staff at Little Orchard Montessori School to make sure they are kept inside, while making house to house visits in the area to offer advice and are assisting with the search on the ground.

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Reintroduction of lynx requires larger numbers to avoid genetic depletion

Date: May 19, 2016

Source: Forschungsverbund Berlin e.V. (FVB)

For successful reintroduction of lynx into the wild, the number of released animals is crucial. If only a few lynx are reintroduced to found a population, the genetic diversity is too low to ensure their long-term sustainability. An international research team has recently published these findings in the scientific journal Conservation Genetics. The researchers highlight the need to strengthen newly established European lynx populations by additional translocations of lynx as well as other conservation measures.

Scientists of the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW), the Bavarian Forest National Park (Germany), the Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland) and the Russian Academy of Sciences (Russia) investigated the genetic status of two lynx populations in the Bohemian-Bavarian and Vosges-Palatinian forests in central Europe.

The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is the largest European cat species and has been protected in the EU since 1992. Originally spread throughout all of Europe, the species is now mainly limited to protected areas such as national parks. Current populations only exist because countries have invested a considerable effort to protect lynx in Europe or to reintroduced them to suitable habitat in its former range. Reintroduced populations face some specific challenges: "Our results show that these reintroduced populations usually consist of too few individuals to be self-sustaining. Small populations are highly vulnerable to loss of genetic variation because each individual represents a high percentage of the population's gene pool," explains Daniel Förster, geneticist at the IZW.

The population in the Bohemian-Bavarian forest was founded by introducing 5 to 10 lynxes in the 1970s and later supplementing them with 18 additional individuals. The population in the Vosges-Palatinian forest was founded by 21 lynxes released between 1983 and 1993. From this already limited number of founders, only some individuals actually produced offspring. "From a genetic point of view this means that the few founder animals represented little genetic variation," says Jörns Fickel, coauthor of the study and also a geneticist at the IZW. To assess the effect of the reintroduction on the genetic status of these two lynx populations, the scientists compared their genetic diversity with those of naturally occurring lynx populations in Eastern Europe. For this purpose they analysed molecular markers in lynx DNA obtained from fecal, blood, and tissue samples.

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Reintroducing lynx to Scotland would put sheep at risk, Norwegian farmers warn

Delegation says large predators can cause serious consequences for farmers

CHRIS GREEN

SCOTLAND EDITOR 

Tuesday 15 September 2015

The reintroduction of lynx and other large predators to parts of Scotland could lead to a rise in the number of sheep being killed and eaten, carrying serious consequences for farmers, a visiting delegation from Norway has warned.

During a trip to Scotland, representatives from the Norwegian Farmers’ Union said their country’s population of wolves, wolverine, lynx and bears posed a constant threat to livestock and had resulted in “huge losses” in some herds of sheep and cattle.

“Norwegians are worried on behalf of Scottish farmers if carnivores are to be introduced here. We worry for the future of their sheep farming and feel sorry for them,” said the union’s vice-president Kristin Ianssen. “We have a long border with Sweden to the east so we will always experience roaming carnivores in our country – it would be impossible to control. But Scotland and the UK is an island, you can decide for yourselves.”

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Ancient Native Americans May Have Had Pet Bobcat

by Tia Ghose, Senior Writer | July 08, 2015 10:37am ET

A 2,000-year-old burial mound discovered in the area that's now Illinois contained the remains of a young bobcat, new research reveals.

The ancient bobcat was wearing a special collar and was found in a ritual burial mound normally reserved for humans.

"It really looked like it had been buried not because it was a feral accessory for a human, but because it was, in some way, kind of respected on its own," said study co-author Angela Perri, a zooarchaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. 

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British public vote in favour of lynx reintroduction

The majority of the British public would like to see the lynx back in the British countryside a survey carried out by the Lynx UK Trust shows.

More than 9,000 people took part in the survey, with 91% supporting a trial reintroduction and 84% believing it should begin within the next 12 months.

Almost seven weeks ago the Lynx UK Trust, a team of international wildlife and conservation experts, announced their hopes to carry out a trial reintroduction of Eurasian lynx to the UK. Wiped out in the UK over 1,300 years ago by fur hunters, lynx have been successfully reintroduced across Europe, and the team hope that reintroduction here will provide a valuable natural control on the UK's overpopulated deer species, leading to forest regeneration and a boost to the entire ecosystem.

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Lynx to be reintroduced into wild in Britain after a 1,300-year absence

The predators eat deer, rabbits and hares among other animals but are not considered a risk to people

IAN JOHNSTON

Lynx are to be reintroduced into the wild in Britain after a 1,300-year absence, under an ambitious “rewilding” plan drawn up by a conservation charity.

The Lynx UK Trust would release up to 18 of the cats onto private estates in Aberdeenshire, Cumbria and Norfolk if the idea is given the go-ahead by Natural England and Scottish Natural Heritage.

The predators eat deer, rabbits and hares among other animals but are not considered a risk to people as they tend to stay away from humans.

Dr Paul O’Donoghue, who advises the trust, told The Sunday Times: “The lynx is one of the most enigmatic, beautiful cats on the planet. The British countryside is dying, and lynx will bring it back to life.”

Source

Lynx take lunch breaks

Date:

December 18, 2014

Source:

Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

Summary:

Whether a lynx hunts by day or by night and how active it is overall depend primarily on the behavior of the wild cat's most important prey and its individual traits - lighting conditions, on the other hand, do not play a major role in its basic behavioral patterns. This is the key finding of a new study in which scientists fitted GPS collars and motion sensors on 38 free-ranging lynx.

Read more ...

Why bring wolves back to the UK?

How would reintroducing wolves and lynx back to Britain work, and what’s the point?

Lucy Siegle

The Observer, Sunday 26 October 2014

Looking for a bit of ecological excitement? Rewilding ticks many boxes. Its premise is that habitats such as the uplands of the UK are anything but wild – they’ve been scarred and deforested. So we are haemorrhaging species and failing to stem ecosystem collapse.

According to rewilding organisations, such as Rewilding Europe, to rescue this land we need to make ecosystems whole again, even if this means looking to the Pleistocene epoch (2.6m to 11,700 years ago) for inspiration. And here’s the thrilling part: if we want to return arable land to wild and reforest the uplands, we need to introduce the apex predators, such as lynx and wolves, that went with it.

If this all sounds a bit Game of Thrones, take Scotland as an example – deer have reached carrying capacity in many areas (the maximum population size that can be supported by the environment) and the intense browsing of trees prevents them from growing. Rewilding would reintroduce an apex predator to regulate the deer. In time the forest would regrow and the natural ecosystem be restored.

In some areas rewilding is up and running. In 1995 Yellowstone Park reintroduced the wolves 70 years after they had disappeared. A herd of bison (Europe’s largest mammals at 1,400lb per beast) has been established in the Romanian Carpathians in a project led by WWF Romania.

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Call for greater protection of endangered lynx in the US

New rules reduce rare wild cat’s critical habitat despite extending legal protection in 48 states, conservationists say

theguardian.com, Friday 12 September 2014 11.48 BST

The US federal government will extend protection to all imperilled Canada lynx in the lower 48 states, but wildlife advocates said on Thursday it was ignoring important parts of the rare cats’ range and vowed to challenge the move in court.

Thickly furred lynx roam through high country from Maine to Washington and south through the Rocky Mountains. They are classified as threatened in the lower 48 states under the Endangered Species Act.

Amid calls from conservation groups for greater protections, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) said in a rule to be published on Friday that it was extending the act’s protection to all lynx “where found” in the contiguous United States. The law broadly bans killing or injuring imperiled animals without a special permit.

“Our final rule provides the lynx, one of only seven wild cat species in the nation, with what it needs to persist and thrive for future generations of Americans,” said Noreen Walsh, the service’s regional director for the Mountain Prairie region.

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Wild lynx to be brought back to British countryside

Wild lynx could be allowed to roam the British countryside for the first time in almost 1,000 years under plans by a group of leading wildlife experts.

By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent

7:30AM BST 26 May 2013

Senior biologists and cat specialists are this week due to apply for a license to reintroduce the cats, which can grow up to four feet in length, into an area of forest on the west coast of Scotland.

Under the plans, which have been backed by officials from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), two pairs of Eurasian lynx would be brought to this country from northern Europe.

A new charity, the Lynx UK Trust, has now been set up by the biologists to oversee the project. They are to submit an official application for a permit to Scottish Natural Heritage, which regulates species reintroduction in Scotland.

The initial reintroduction would act as trial to see whether lynx could then be reintroduced to other areas of the country including parts of Wales and northern England.

The plan, however, is expected to be controversial with farmers and some land owners, who will see the lynx as a threat to livestock and grouse.

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Two lynx released in Coto Donana to increase genetic diversity

Spanish Lynx Project

July 2013. In an effort to increase the genetic variability of the population of Iberian lynx in Coto Doñana National Park, LIFE-Lynx have been running a series of carefully planned relocations of lynx from other areas. 

Since 2007, four lynx from the Sierra Morena have been released in Doñana, two of whom have subsequently reproduced and so introduced their genes into the Donana population. This has restored some genetic diversity that had been lost to the in the twentieth century. 

On July 1 2013, two more Lynx were released as part of within this program; in this case the two lynx were again from the Sierra Morena , though these two have been part of the captive breeding program. These animals, known as Jabalcuz and Jarena, (male and female respectively), were born and raised in the breeding centre in La Olivilla, which opened in 2006. The two lynx are currently sharing pre-release training and acclimatisation, in an attempt to create a bond between, and so far the indications are that the interactions between them have been very positive.

3 deaths

However, in the last couple of months, at least 3 lynx have died, two of which were hit by cars. A 4 year old male was found by the side of a road between the villages of Hinojos and Villamanrique de la Condesa to the south-west of Seville. 

Read on

Wild lynx to be brought back to British countryside

Wild lynx could be allowed to roam the British countryside for the first time in almost 1,000 years under plans by a group of leading wildlife experts.

Senior biologists and cat specialists are this week due to apply for a license to reintroduce the cats, which can grow up to four feet in length, into an area of forest on the west coast of Scotland.

Under the plans, which have been backed by officials from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), two pairs of Eurasian lynx would be brought to this country from northern Europe.

A new charity, the Lynx UK Trust, has now been set up by the biologists to oversee the project. They are to submit an official application for a permit to Scottish Natural Heritage, which regulates species reintroduction in Scotland.

The initial reintroduction would act as trial to see whether lynx could then be reintroduced to other areas of the country including parts of Wales and northern England.

The plan, however, is expected to be controversial with farmers and some land owners, who will see the lynx as a threat to livestock and grouse.

Continued