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Stories often centre on one solitary lynx. The adults. reclusive as they are, come together only during the breeding season in late winter and early spring when the snow is beginning to melt, making tracking difficult. Their encounters are often quite raucous, giving rise to strident and discordant yowls that chill the spine as they echo through the forest in the dark of night. An average of two to three young are born to late May or June after a gestation of about nine weeks. The den is a casual affair, situated in thick brush, hollow logs or under tree roots. The young remain with the mother, their sole guardian, through their first winter.

When females are raising young they become a cooperative hunting unit gaining in efficiency and success as the winter progresses and the kits gain experience. Although it is hard to read the exact sequence of a group chase from the mishmash of tracks it is probable that the young kits are actively participating in the hunt by January. Says Bill KoonZ. "If you're following a family group of lynx, a mother and four kittens, it's exciting to see the kitten track catch something -- usually it's the mother. They often fan out. You'll have two kittens on either side of the mother and they'll make a sweep through a particular habitat type. They're quite effective at driving animals to each other. A hare starts to run and makes a quick circle or arc and runs into another lynx which grabs him." Kittens follow their mother in single file through mature conifer habitat, stepping in their mother's tracks. In prime hare habitat they'll disperse and zigzag through thickets, being more successful as a group (on average, 42 per cent of attempts are successiul) than a lone lynx, whose success is generally half that. When the hare populations are good, so are the survival rates of the young lynx, but there are only three years or so when the hares are abundant enough to ensure that females will raise young successfully. "When you do move into that phase, all of the females are five or six years old, and in a prime reproductive state," says Bill Koonz. "They're efficient predators; they've learned through hardship how to hunt and how to care for themselves and they're in a position to be very, very successful." In their search for food during the hard years or when their numbers are so high as to cause an exodus from their normal habitat, lynx come into contact with man. Many tales come from trappers, who can be an invaluable aid to research. Carcasses voluntarily turned in by trappers have heen studied extensively in labs, providing information on lynx diets, their diseases and parasites, and their average weight, height and length measurements. The number of pelts brought in each winter has served as the only index of lynx population numbers, since there is at present no reliable census method. Even those crude figures indicate that lynx numbers in Canada vary greatly over the years: from a low 0f 7,322 in 1951/52 to a high of 4l,8ll in 1981/82. Pelt prices soared from $27 in 1971/72 to a high of $356 in 1978/79 before levelling off at $250 to $290. But lynx are not always trapped intentionally. Trapper Mary Carpenter, born and raised on a trapline in north-western Ontario, has seen a lynx caught in a trap set out for a marten. The sudden spring of the quick-kill trap around the lynx's forepaws must have initiated a flight reaction. "I looked up, and there almost at the top of a 35-foot jackpine was a lynx, hanging by its paw. He'd snagged himself with the trap on one of the branches, probably as he was trying to get down again. Looking at that poor lynx, I remembered how my father used to tell us long ago that if you ever lose your trap always look up. Lots of times in the past he found his traps missing and never knew what had happened until one fall he saw a few bones near where he had set the traps the year before. The poor thing had died and dried up to a skeleton in the tree and of course the bones had fallen down." A truly humane trap must somehow address the problem of the wrong animal being caught and, in a panic, fleeing with the trap to an unknown fate. In the meantime, the entire population of lynx must be carefully managed. Since lynx are fur-beating animals they are managed through trapping regulations that vary from province to province. Adjusting the length of the trapping season or implementing quotas are the two methods presently used to manage lynx populations in Canada. Lynx are still relatively abundant here and are not considered endangered. But they are no longer found in New Brunswick, lower Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island. And in the United States there is deep concern. Loss of habitat and warmer winters since the time of the first settlers have pushed the lynx range north until today they are restricted to about 15 per cent of their former range in the lower 48 states. This has caused concerned citizens to propose the lynx as a candidate for federal listing. Lynx are listed on Appendix II of the Convention on lnternational Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and Canada enforces the requirement of a CITES export permit for lynx pelts leaving the country. The permit does not restrict the number of pelts allowed out of the country, but it does serve as an indicator of the number taken each year. The convention helps protect lynx in countries that don't have the basic controls that we have here. Even in Canada, the future is not necessarily assured for this solitary feline. Increased access to wilderness areas, indiscriminate use of snowmobiles and all terrain vehicles, and increased trapping activity if pelt prices remain high are all potential pressures. There is also the ever-present threat of loss of habitat. The need for responsible management remains critical, as does the need for trackers and scientists willing to spend long hours studying the habits of lynx from their tracks in the snow.

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