Canada lynx are intimately tied to snowshoe hare population cycles. Their welfare follows a boom-bust pattern that climate change and habitat fragmentation are making more severe.
Wild lynx welfare follows the extreme cycle of snowshoe hare population dynamics. During hare population crashes, lynx experience prolonged food stress — animals unable to maintain body condition deteriorate over weeks to months of inadequate prey availability before dying of starvation. Kittens born during low hare years face very high mortality from starvation. Habitat fragmentation forces lynx to cross roads and human-modified landscapes during dispersal, increasing collision and snare mortality. Climate change is reducing the deep snow conditions that give lynx their competitive advantage over coyotes and other predators — in areas where snow cover is reduced, lynx are outcompeted and decline. Connectivity between northern forest habitats is essential for lynx to track hare population cycles across the landscape.