Canada Lynx
Make a donation to the "Jynx the Lynx" Facebook fundraiser here. All proceeds will go to making his new home at Cat Tales all it can be.
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Mead, WA— 8/25/20 — Cat Tales Wildlife Center welcomes a new member to the animal family. Jynx the Lynx, a 12-year-old Canada Lynx, arrived at Cat Tales Thursday where he will be housed in a temporary quarantine space before moving into his new home in the recently renovated Small Cat Forest section of the park. Recently Jynx’s lifelong owner and bonded caregiver, Jon, passed away. A longtime friend of Jon’s who was the executor to Jynx’s care and placement, reached out to Cat Tales to find a forever home for this orphaned lynx. Cat Tales staff drove to Orofino, ID last week to meet Jynx, and transported him to his new home in Mead, WA. Jynx will take some time to settle into his new home, new animal neighbors, and become comfortable with his new humans, who are excited to get to know Jynx. Once in the Small Cat Forest section of the park, Jynx will be housed next to our 2 year old female Canada lynx, Sibella, where guests to Cat Tales will be able to see our new arrival and admire what a wonderful addition he makes to our four legged family and education program.
“Wow, he’s huge!” said Wildlife Director Debbie Wyche when Jynx arrived at Cat Tales Thursday evening. It’s true, he is much bigger than Sibella, and he appears to be in quite good health, something that often is not the case when we receive rescues from the private sector. |
Welcoming and Supporting Jynx Jynx will need the next month during his quarantine to slowly get used to his new home and the new faces that will be caring for him and helping him settle in. Guests to the park might catch a glimpse of him during their tour as he grows more comfortable and curious. We are holding an online fundraiser for Jynx which will help us cover materials for a new den box, platform, enrichment, and medical costs including vaccinations before joining the other “small” cats in his new space. Check out our website and Facebook pages for details on the Jynx fundraiser. Our thanks to the friends and family of Jynx’s former human, Jon, who have already been spreading the word about our facility and what we do to help with donations and support. We thank you also for entrusting Cat Tales to provide Jynx’s forever home.
Visiting Cat Tales and Jynx Jynx will be in his temporary space for the next 30 days before moving into the Small Cat Forest. His visibility to our guests during this first month is entirely up to Jynx. He has plenty of space to hide and settle in, but with viewable areas should he wish to say hello. Once his new space is ready with brand new den box and platform for him to claim and make his own, we will move him into his new forever home. Sibella will also be moving into her new space as his neighbor, so they will have lots to talk about together as they settle in.
Visiting Cat Tales and Jynx Jynx will be in his temporary space for the next 30 days before moving into the Small Cat Forest. His visibility to our guests during this first month is entirely up to Jynx. He has plenty of space to hide and settle in, but with viewable areas should he wish to say hello. Once his new space is ready with brand new den box and platform for him to claim and make his own, we will move him into his new forever home. Sibella will also be moving into her new space as his neighbor, so they will have lots to talk about together as they settle in.
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Sibella - born May 10, 2018, came to us at Cat Tales in September 2018 when she was four months old. She took her trip with Kachina, our puma, but where the trip was easy on Kachina it was very difficult on Sibella. She was anxious and frustrated upon arrival, and wanted nothing to do with Kachina or most of our keepers.
It took us plenty of time and work to get Sibella back to the personality she knew she would have. For her first months with us she lived in our nursery, being handled by a few dedicated keepers on a day by day basis to get her comfortable with them. As her personality developed, she moved outside near our canines, and then more recently into a large enclosure besides Kachina and our bears. Needless to say, Sibella has fully grown into herself! She's a vibrant, curious little Canadian Lynx who loves to play with Kachina through their enclosure walls, follow our keepers around when they clean her house, and get scritches on her butt by passing keepers. Sibella is loving her life in her new home! |
Canada Lynx Information
The Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) is a medium-sized North American cat that ranges across Alaska, Canada and many of the contiguous United States. It is characterized by its long, dense fur, triangular ears with black tufts at the tips, and broad, snowshoe-like paws. Similar to the bobcat (L. rufus), the hind-limbs are longer than the forelimbs, so that the back slopes downward to the front. The Canada lynx stands 48–56 cm (19–22 in) tall at the shoulder and weighs between 5 and 17 kg (11 and 37 lb). The lynx is a good swimmer and an agile climber. The Canada lynx was first described by Robert Kerr in 1792. Three subspecies have been proposed, but their validity is doubted.
A specialist predator, the Canada lynx depends heavily on snowshoe hares for food. This leads to a prey-predator cycle, as Canada lynxes respond to the cyclic rises and falls in snowshoe hare populations over the years in Alaska and central Canada. When hares are scarce lynxes tend to move to areas with more hares and tend not to produce litters, and as the numbers of the hare increase, so do the populations of the lynx. The Canada lynx hunts mainly around twilight, or at night, when snowshoe hares tend to be active. The lynx waits for the hare on specific trails or in "ambush beds", then pounces on it and kills it by a bite on its head, throat or the nape of its neck. Individuals, particularly of the same sex, tend to avoid each other, forming "intrasexual" territories. The mating season is roughly a month long (from March to early April). After a gestation of two to three months, a litter of one to eight kittens is born. Offspring are weaned at 12 weeks.
This lynx occurs predominantly in dense boreal forests, and its range strongly coincides with that of the snowshoe hare. Given its abundance throughout the range, and no severe threats, the Canada lynx has been listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. This lynx is regularly trapped for the international fur trade in most of Alaska and Canada but is protected in the southern half of its range due to threats such as habitat loss.
A specialist predator, the Canada lynx depends heavily on snowshoe hares for food. This leads to a prey-predator cycle, as Canada lynxes respond to the cyclic rises and falls in snowshoe hare populations over the years in Alaska and central Canada. When hares are scarce lynxes tend to move to areas with more hares and tend not to produce litters, and as the numbers of the hare increase, so do the populations of the lynx. The Canada lynx hunts mainly around twilight, or at night, when snowshoe hares tend to be active. The lynx waits for the hare on specific trails or in "ambush beds", then pounces on it and kills it by a bite on its head, throat or the nape of its neck. Individuals, particularly of the same sex, tend to avoid each other, forming "intrasexual" territories. The mating season is roughly a month long (from March to early April). After a gestation of two to three months, a litter of one to eight kittens is born. Offspring are weaned at 12 weeks.
This lynx occurs predominantly in dense boreal forests, and its range strongly coincides with that of the snowshoe hare. Given its abundance throughout the range, and no severe threats, the Canada lynx has been listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. This lynx is regularly trapped for the international fur trade in most of Alaska and Canada but is protected in the southern half of its range due to threats such as habitat loss.