Canadian Lynx in New Hampshire

 

 

If a lynx bounds through 18 inches of fresh power in the woods of northern N.H. and nobody is there, does it still make a noise?  

Trick question.

       Day in and day out, as the lynx races through thick underbrush searching for a snowshoe hare, it makes no noise. The the trees, almost in awe of such beauty, appear to bow outwardly to tunnel of travel. Massive paws allow this cat to skillfully and silently walk on top of the softest snow.

     With such a low density of lynx in N.H., I truly enjoy the challenge of trying to photograph them. For me, it is the ultimate test to design the right tools (remote camera systems) and combine those tools with the past experience and knowledge of wildlife to predict why/where an animal will be before it gets there.

          When working with remote cameras, in particular long term camera sets, if things can go wrong, they will. Moisture in the camera leads to blurry pictures, batteries die, the cold stops components from working, a curious moose or bear moves/steals/punctures the camera only to be found face down or waterlogged months later, and the list goes on. These photos, taken in the winter of 2013, highlight one such success. One lynx, eight pictures, frozen in time.

Bobcat Marking

     The camera was placed with the hopes of capturing a Canadian lynx (Lynx canadensis) , but it's close cousin the bobcat (Lynx rufus) was the only feline that showed up during the 35 days this camera was set. This picture leads me to believe this cat is marking the trial over other feline scent. This photograph is a great example of why  its important to catalog and record all procedures and variables for each camera set-something that will enable the photographer to better understand a vast amount of biological information such as what animals visit each area, why certain species are more abundant in specific locations, and how animals react to outside stimuli such as scents, visual attracters, audio calls, etc .

Canadian Lynx Kittens in N.H.

      This photo, one of a series, was taken in late November of 2012 is among the first to show not just Canadian lynx in New Hampshire, but a population of breeding Canadian lynx. A breeding population is vastly more important to biologists then a single animal or animals passing through.
       These kittens represent the future for lynx in N.H. Had this camera not been set, it is likely these lynx would have never been observed. It's a testament to a cat that is among other things, extraordinarily stealthy. Note the large size of the tracks in the snow, one characteristic that sets lynx tracks apart from it's relative the bobcat. There's a wonderful article in the N.H. Wildlife Journal, written by Nancy Skarmeas with the help of a very knowledgable biologist named Will Staats. It can be found HERE. Special thanks to Luke Barbour and Cameron Ehle, who helped setup/retrieve these cameras.

The First Lynx

My favorite picture of the lynx- a male, pausing to check out the scents I had put down over a months earlier.  

            

           A good friend and local biologist saw a lynx in Pittsburg N.H. earlier this summer, but with no photo's to show, there wasn't the proof needed to confirm this species. A few transient lynx have passed through NH in the last decade, evidence that has been found in tracks, but the last known NH lynx was killed by a car in 1993. 

              In mid July I began to set up the cameras I built in Pittsburg N.H., using many of the same tricks that I had used for bobcat. I checked my cameras at the end of July, in August, and then again in early September. I added a few cameras and moved them around to put the most reliable cameras in the best locations. Essentially I was focusing on the best snowshoe hare habitat, the Lynx's primary food--as confirmed by many scat analysis studies in Maine and southern Quebec. 

           Checking and deploying the cameras is a full two-day job, sunrise to sun set. In November, after 4.5 months, and over 10,000 photographs, I had the pictures of a lynx that I wanted. The picture above is one such example, and is to my knowledge the first picture of a wild lynx in New Hampshire habitat ever. I have exhausted all of my sources in search of another photograph of a lynx in NH, and it seems unlikely to me, after talking with biologists, scholars, and examining the history of lynx in N.H., that such a photograph exists. When I check them cameras again in another month or so, I will be trying a few new tricks that I picked up from some old trappers, and I believe these new techniques will make my camera sets very successful. Look for new pictures that will be posted here in the coming months, meanwhile I have deployed enough local cameras in some of my favorite spots to keep the pictures coming until then. A special thank-you to all of those who have supported my efforts, they would not be possible without the support and constant information from those at home an on the web.

Here is the link to the published article by N.H. Fish and Game:

http://www.wildnh.com/Newsroom/News_2011/news_2011_Q4/lynx_documented_120911.html