Feds seek 88% 'critical habitat' cut for lynx in Yellowstone ecosystem

Pointing to new science suggesting the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem lacks quality lynx habitat, wildlife managers are proposing expansive reductions in the area designated as "critical habitat" for the rare, snowshoe hare-dependent felines.

Despite the lynx's almost complete absence - apart from a 2022 one-off sighting - the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has classified 9146 square miles of the Yellowstone area as critical lynx habitat for the past decade.

Last week, the federal agency proposed a revision, tentatively slashing critical habitat in the region to 1121 square miles - an 88% cut. Federal officials cite leaps in lynx habitat science as their rationale. 

"The new modeling is empirical, it's tested, it's validated with independent data - it's the best stuff we have," Fish and Wildlife Biologist Jim Zelenak told WyoFile. "What it shows is what some of us have thought all along: that the Greater Yellowstone is really just not great for lynx." 

Previously, he said, critical habitat designations were based on modeling that looked at aerial imagery and slope angles. The outcome was "broadly protective" habitat designations that included places where lynx may not have historically roamed, such as Yellowstone National Park. 

For a quarter century, lynx have been classified as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act, which requires federal officials to identify habitats critical to the conservation of a species and meriting special protection. 

Currently, critical habitat for lynx stretches from the tip of the Wyoming Range, through Yellowstone National Park, clear up to the Beartooth Mountains and Gallatin Range. That designation dates to 2014. 

The revision came about when it did because of a legal agreement.

The new proposed maps restrict critical habitat to three disconnected areas of the Yellowstone region, all in Wyoming. The largest swath treads over the Wyoming and Salt River ranges - an area lynx occupied as recently as the 1970s, but were extirpated from by the early 2000s. Another block of proposed critical habitat is located on the west slope of Togwotee Pass, while the last is a tract that bridges from the northern Wind River Range into the southern Absarokas.  

Quality lynx habitat is the same as good snowshoe hare habitat, because the large-pawed, pointy-eared cats depend on the forest-dwelling lagomorphs. In the absence of adequate hare numbers, lynx can hang on, but they struggle to reproduce and persist long term.

The Fish and Wildlife Service proposed its revisions to critical lynx habitat in conjunction with a final recovery plan for the species throughout its range in the Lower 48. 

"It's largely a maintenance recovery plan," Zelenak said. "We want to maintain current population resilience by maintaining populations of sufficient size with sufficiently large areas of suitable habitat that remain well-connected to the core of the species' range in Canada." 

Federal biologists estimate that there are roughly 2000 lynx south of the Canadian border, with easily the largest remaining population residing in Maine. Other functional populations are found in the arrowhead region of Minnesota, the North Cascades in Washington, the northern Rockies in Montana and the southern Rockies in Colorado. 

Although the Yellowstone area is essentially devoid of lynx, Wyoming's prospective habitat is also projected to remain viable as the climate warms over the remainder of this century - unlike habitat in New England and elsewhere that's susceptible to disappearing, according to the recovery plan. 

The plan does not call for reintroducing lynx to the southern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, at least not yet. Habitat modeling suggests that perhaps 25 to 50 cats could call the region home, if a reintroduction was studied and OK'd down the road, Zelenak said.

"The [Yellowstone area] and the southern Rockies are the two places that are projected to stay cold enough longest, so they both could serve as climate refugia," he said.

If lynx do show up on their own, somewhat regular intensive surveys might detect them. The Bridger-Teton National Forest and, more recently, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department have swept the state's most suitable habitat looking for the mid-sized cats, though they haven't found evidence of a single animal. A mountain lion houndsman did acquire proof of a lone animal up a tree in 2022, snapping a photograph of the wildcat. 

Although wildlife officials are proposing the large-scale reduction in Yellowstone-region critical habitat, that's not to say that lynx won't be accounted for at all in federal land-use planning, Zelenak said. Former critical habitat in the region isn't going to return to "the wild west of timber management again," he said. 

The Fish and Wildlife Service is taking comments on its proposed habitat revisions through Jan. 28. The agency will publish a final rule changing the designations at this time next year, Zelenak said. To weigh in, go to http://www.regulations.gov, docket no. FWS–R6–ES–2024–0142.

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