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Wildfires have drastically reduced lynx habitat in Washington state

Twenty years of wildfires have cut down habitats and prey crucial to lynx in the north-west US, slashing the maximum number of cats that the region can support by up to 73 per cent

By Corryn Wetzel

25 April 2023

early summer morning Canadian Lynx (Lynx canadensis) in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada; Shutterstock ID 1566601432; purchase_order: -; job: -; client: -; other: -

Wildfires are burning the vegetation that feeds the hares Canada lynx eat

Shutterstock / Jukka Jantunen

Wildfires have scorched around a third of Washington state’s Canada lynx habitat in the past two decades, dramatically cutting the region’s ability to support the felines.

Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis), which can be identified by their black ear tufts and tail tip, once ranged across cold, snowy forests in North America. The stocky, short-tailed cats were heavily hunted for their pelts in the 1900s, but habitat and hunting protections in recent decades have supported the species’ …

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