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Coyotes-Wolves-Cougars.blogspot.com

Grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars/ mountain lions,bobcats, wolverines, lynx, foxes, fishers and martens are the suite of carnivores that originally inhabited North America after the Pleistocene extinctions. This site invites research, commentary, point/counterpoint on that suite of native animals (predator and prey) that inhabited The Americas circa 1500-at the initial point of European exploration and subsequent colonization. Landscape ecology, journal accounts of explorers and frontiersmen, genetic evaluations of museum animals, peer reviewed 20th and 21st century research on various aspects of our "Wild America" as well as subjective commentary from expert and layman alike. All of the above being revealed and discussed with the underlying goal of one day seeing our Continent rewilded.....Where big enough swaths of open space exist with connective corridors to other large forest, meadow, mountain, valley, prairie, desert and chaparral wildlands.....Thereby enabling all of our historic fauna, including man, to live in a sustainable and healthy environment. - Blogger Rick

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Wednesday, February 24, 2010

In the Rocky Mountain West, what type habitat do lynx need to prosper?

While there has been many discussions about how logging impacts the ability of Lynx to thrive or perish, evidence in the West suggests that dense horizontal cover, a haystack of wind throwed logs adjacent to dense forest cover is the perfect habitat for lynx to thrive. This type vegetation matrix breeds an abundance of snowshoe hare, the lynx primary foodstuff. The more hare, the more lynx. In fact in good hare habitat, lynx can breed a couple of times a year successfully. That edge habitat, whether caused by storm induced high winds or a loggers clear cut makes for a comfortable home for lynx. Let it be known that the clearcut becomes favorable for lynx a good 20 years into regrowth as the dense thicket understory develops. So, our paper companies and commercial loggers need to take into account the size of clearcuts so as to leave necessary dense forest cover adjacent for lynx. A forest specialist our big pawed lynx cat is and our humanity is on display as we find ways to allow this snowshoe hare specialist to thrive and endure into the 21st century and beyond.

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