Maybe he was headed home to Canada. Maybe he heard about the great fishing at Boysen Reservoir. Maybe he got mixed up at the I-25 and I-70 Interchange like I always do and got on the wrong road. Whatever the reason, a Canada lynx originally transplanted to Colorado ended up perched in a tree south of Cheyenne, and I had the pleasure to meet him.
Actually, I almost missed this once-in-a-lifetime experience. I returned from lunch on Tuesday, Jan. 23, to a large crowd of Game and Fish employees gathered around a department vehicle. I figured it was just a random gathering of employees using their last remaining minutes of lunch to visit before returning to the job. I headed to my office, anticipating the stack of work I wanted to tackle before the end of my day.
The crowd at the pickup had gathered to see a Canada lynx Game Warden Jon Stephens had captured. I patiently waited my turn, then cautiously peered into the crate. The big cat was bedded down in his makeshift home, his paws tucked under him, ears relaxed up against his head. One could almost be lulled into a false sense of security and be inclined to rub his ears, as one would pet a domestic cat.
That is, until you looked into his eyes, or heard his growl. His eyes were intense, as if staring right into your fears. His growl was low, throaty, almost imperceptible under the chatter of the people gathered around him. There are those who say animals don’t have emotions, that we humans project our own emotions, thoughts and feelings on our four-legged counterparts. Maybe so, but I’m here to say that lynx looked, well, bemused.
“You people should worship me. I am a beautiful and wild cat forced to suffer the indignity of being held in a dog carrier,” I imagined him saying, a haughty air to his voice. “I’m not afraid of you. I’m not threatened by your inquisitive stares. I am merely tolerating you. Should you forget that, I’ll give you a brief glimpse of my furry and clawed paw and razor-sharp teeth.”
Canada lynx closely resemble the more common and widespread bobcat, but are slightly larger than bobcats, with longer legs and larger, well-furred feet. They have thick gray or light brown fur, with tufted ears. Lynx typically occupy remote, heavily forested mountain habitats.
While this lynx wasn’t large, he wasn’t exactly your neighborhood tabby either. After getting a call about a “bobcat with a collar” treed by dogs at a residence south of Cheyenne, Game Warden Stephens went to investigate. What he found was a surprise, to say the least. This wildcat Stephens identified as a lynx is rare in the lower 48 states, largely because its prey species, the snowshoe hare, is found chiefly in Canada and Alaska.
To capture the lynx, Stephens had to climb up this tree, shimmy out on a limb and snag the lynx with a catch pole, similar to what animal control officers use. From there, he got the animal on the ground. Wildlife biologist Rebecca Schilowsky and Stephens guided the cat into a crate.
When Stephens told us the tentative plan was to release the animal in the Snowy Range sometime later that afternoon, my employees immediately began salivating at the opportunity to cover the event, and arranged to follow Stephens and Schilowsky in another vehicle.
Our scramble to find winter boots, gloves and cameras and arrange for care and transport of dogs and children was all for naught. The collar the lynx was wearing was actually a global position system collar, a tool wildlife biologists use to track the movements of animals and gain more information about habitat selection, migration patterns, etc. It identified him as a member of the Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW) lynx reintroduction program, and, not surprisingly, Colorado wanted him back.
Colorado released more than 200 lynx in the remote San Juan Mountain region in the southwestern part of the state from 1999 through 2006 in an attempt to restore lynx. This particular lynx, we later found out from CDOW lynx program manager Tanya Schenk, was captured in British Columbia and released in west of Wolf Creek Pass and Creede in 2004. His last location was reported near Steamboat Springs, Colo.
Most folks could understand why he needed returned to CDOW. This animal was part of a reintroduction effort to bolster population numbers of a native species, and each animal in such an effort is important. It was the professional thing to do.
Try telling that to two writers and a vidoegrapher already forming the words for story leads in their heads.
“Stupid Colorado,” I grumbled, my daydreams of my prize-winning article on watching the lynx disappear in the timberline evaporating before my eyes.
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” muttered Ty, our news editor.
None of us being one to give up the opportunity for any story, even a slightly less grandiose version, Ty and I, along with Ray Hageman and his video camera, followed Stephens and Schilowsky to the handoff site in northern Colorado.
Silently, reverently, sadly, we watched as the lynx was transferred from the forest green Game and Fish vehicle to the Colorado pickup. After exchanging some contact information and promises of follow up, the lynx was gone, off to rehab for a few days at a Colorado facility before being re-released in the southwestern part of the state.
Even if it didn’t go quite as we had planned, it was an amazing opportunity to see a rare and magnificent animal up close and share a fun moment with colleagues.
Ray’s lead for his video news feature later that week summed it up best… “Sometimes you find the neatest things in trees.”
