Protected lynx habitat may shrink
Threatened Canada lynx once stalked vast tracts of Inland Northwest boreal forest, but only one square mile of the threatened cat’s habitat in far eastern Washington and North Idaho will be given special protection under a federal proposal announced Wednesday.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials said lynx already receive protection on federal land, but conservationists say the relatively small amount of lynx habitat up for critical habitat designation has little to do with science and everything to do with politics.
Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would reform the Endangered Species Act, including stopping the government from designating additional critical habitat. The Senate has yet to take up the measure.
Mike Petersen, executive director of The Lands Council, said the small amount of land proposed for critical lynx habitat is the result of the Fish and Wildlife Service “putting their finger to the winds” of change.
“It’s not too surprising to see the Fish and Wildlife Service cave in to the pressure they’re feeling by Congress,” Petersen said.
Critical habitat designation offers little extra protection for imperiled fish and wildlife, said the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Diane Katzenberger. The designation was mostly made to comply with a court order, she said.
“We don’t think that it really adds to the protection,” Katzenberger said.
It’s already illegal to destroy habitat of species protected by the Endangered Species Act. And the U.S. Forest Service has developed widespread lynx protection plans across many northern forests, including the Idaho Panhandle National Forests. This is why no federal land in the region was included for critical lynx habitat designation, Katzenberger said.
But Petersen and other conservationists say the critical habitat designation helps focus preservation efforts by alerting the public and land managers of the importance of the habitat. Mike Senatore, an attorney with Defenders of Wildlife, called the Fish and Wildlife’s scaled-back critical habitat proposal “legally baseless and illogical.” It was a lawsuit by Defenders of Wildlife that forced the agency to propose lynx habitat protections.
“As a general matter, critical habitat clearly would provide additional protections above and beyond what you would get in a national forest plan,” Senatore said.
Critical habitat designation has little impact on private landowners, Katzenberger said. Only actions on private land requiring a federal permit – such as modifying a wetland – would require a special consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure the action does not destroy designated critical habitat. The classification has more bearing on federal land, where it would prohibit actions like certain types of logging or road building projects.
Large portions of far northern Idaho and northeastern Washington already fall under critical habitat designation for bull trout, caribou and grizzly bear, among other species.
For lynx, only a tiny sliver of state-owned land in far northeastern Boundary County would be designated critical habitat. In north central Washington’s Chelan and Okanogan counties, 164 square miles of state land and 5 square miles of private land would be designated critical lynx habitat. Thousands of additional acres in both states are considered viable lynx habitat, however.
No critical habitat is proposed in the Okanogan Highlands, for instance, which is believed to have the healthiest remaining Canada lynx population in the West. Despite scattered reports of the solitary, tufted-ear cats living in northeastern Washington’s Kettle Mountain Range, the Fish and Wildlife Service says there’s not enough evidence of a viable population to include the area as critical habitat.
Lynx also live in several northeastern states, as well as Minnesota, Wyoming and Montana. Critical habitat is being proposed for about 16,000 square miles nationwide, the vast majority in Maine.
In the West, the cats typically live deep in the forest at elevations above 3,500 feet.
They weigh about 20 pounds, which is bigger than a bobcat, and have long legs and feet nearly as big as a cougar.
The animals prefer boreal forest in climates with large amounts of fluffy winter snow. Their large feet allow easy pursuit of hare and other prey.
The critical habitat designation will not be finalized until next November. An economic analysis must first be conducted.