Rare Endangered Lynx Spotted in Vermont for the First Time Since 2018

A sighting of a rare wildcat called the Canada lynx has been confirmed in Vermont for the first time since 2018, according to a statement from the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. Local resident Gary Shattuck recorded video of the male cat on August 17 as the animal walked alongside a road in Rutland County.

“Canada lynx are endangered in Vermont and threatened nationally,” Brehan Furfey, a wildlife biologist with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, says in the statement. “That makes any verifiable lynx sighting in our state important. This newest sighting is especially exciting, because the cat was spotted in Rutland County, far south of most confirmed lynx reports in Vermont.”

Often, when a lynx is reported to the department, it’s a false alarm. State wildlife biologists have only been able to confirm seven of 160 reports of lynx sightings since 2016. That’s because lynx look similar to bobcats, which are much more common in the area—both have black tufts of fur on their ears and short, black-tipped tails. But lynx have longer legs and larger, snowshoe-like feet. Their ear tufts are also longer, and the tips of their tails are completely black, while bobcats’ tails are white-tipped underneath.

“If you think you’re looking at a lynx, the most helpful thing you can do is take a photo or video and send it to the Fish and Wildlife Department,” Furfey says in the statement. “The large majority of photographs our biologists receive are bobcats, but that doesn’t exclude the possibility that a Canada lynx will show up one day.”

That day ended up being last week, when Shattuck spotted the lynx at around 6:30 p.m. on a Saturday evening. “I wasn’t too far from home when I noticed this large feline on the side of the road, walking in the same direction [I was driving],” Shattuck, 73, tells the Burlington Free Press’ Dan D’Ambrosio. “I pulled up to it and couldn’t tell if it was a bobcat. I was concerned because it looked so thin.”

“It looked malnourished but didn’t make it sound. It didn’t even acknowledge or look at me,” he adds to the Washington Post’s Amber Ferguson.

But wildlife biologists say that’s likely nothing to worry about. The lone male is probably passing through the region while looking for new territory, a behavior known as “dispersing.”

“Although this lynx appears to be on the thinner side, its calm behavior around passing cars as reported by observers is not unusual for a dispersing individual,” Furfey says in the statement. “This lynx was probably just focused on finding food in an area where hares are not abundant and on avoiding competition with bobcats and fishers while passing through southern Vermont.”

Male lynx measure about 33.5 inches long and weigh between 26 and 30 pounds, while females are about 32 inches long and weigh between 17 and 20 pounds. Lynx’s long legs and large feet make them well-equipped for hunting snowshoe hares, their primary prey, in deep snow, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“Lynx are specially adapted to hunt snowshoe hares,” Furfey says in the statement. “Both species need young forest habitats and reliable snowpack to thrive. In Vermont, the best combination of climate, habitat and enough hares to support lynx is in the Northeast Kingdom, and even that is on the low end compared to areas of New Hampshire and Maine, where lynx are more common.”

Lynx live across most of Canada and Alaska in the coniferous forests of the taiga. In the contiguous states, populations currently exist in northern Maine and New Hampshire, northeastern Minnesota, northwestern Montana, northern Idaho, north-central Washington and western Colorado.

Because the male lynx seen last week is on the move, and because dispersing individuals can cover a lot of ground, biologists say it might not be in Vermont anymore.

Will Sullivan | | READ MORE

Will Sullivan is a science writer based in Washington, D.C. His work has appeared in Inside Science and NOVA Next.