A lynx wore a radio collar as part of Home Range Wildlife Research’s study of the cats’ local habitat, which was affected by the Tripod Fire.
Canada lynx appear to be returning to mountainous territory near the Methow Valley that was prime lynx habitat before it was burned by the Tripod Fire in 2006.
The Tripod Fire was the first modern “megafire” in Washington state, consuming about 175,000 acres of national forest land. Researchers based in the Methow Valley are studying how lynx, a species at risk of extinction, respond when large fires destroy their habitat.
The three-year research project by Home Range Wildlife Research, a local nonprofit organization, began last winter with trapping and radio collaring lynx in the area burned by the Tripod Fire. The study area includes about 100,000 acres in high elevation mountains between the Methow and Okanogan valleys, extending north of Loup Loup Pass to the Pasayten Wilderness boundary.
This part of the North Cascades is home to one of five populations of Canada lynx in the lower 48 states identified in a draft recovery plan that was released this month by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Lynx are protected as a threatened species under federal law, and an endangered species under Washington law.
“I really appreciate that lynx are going to get a spotlight with this recovery plan. They need all the help they can get,” said Carmen Vanbianchi, research director for Home Range Wildlife Research.
Using traps built with volunteer help, the researchers caught four lynx last winter and another lynx in the fall. Currently, three lynx have radio collars, two of them for almost a year, which allow researchers to track their movements. The researchers have also installed trail cameras in the burn area.
Lynx have been known to travel for long distances in search of food, but the collared lynx in the Tripod burn area seem to be staying close to home.
“So far, the ones we have collared don’t have giant home ranges,” said Vanbianchi. “The home ranges on are on the smaller side, which could indicate that habitat is pretty good.”
Fire recovery may help
Prior to the Tripod Fire, the study area was a sub-alpine forest of mostly older trees with a healthy population of snowshoe hares. Lynx are prey specialists, and hares make up the bulk of their diet. With large furry feet and long legs, lynx are adept at running down hares in soft snow.
As the forest burned by the Tripod Fire has regenerated during the past 17 years, it appears that it may again provide habitat that supports lynx and hares, Vanbianchi said.
Based on the evidence from trail cameras and snow tracking, there appear to be several lynx in the study area, said Vanbianchi. She began working to capture and collar lynx in this area as a U.S. Forest Service employee in 2011, six years after the Tripod Fire, and in 2013 began her own study of lynx in the area as part of her master’s degree. Her previous research provides a valuable basis for comparison. “Back then, lynx were barely using the Tripod burn,” she said.
“Anecdotal signs are making me cautiously hopeful that lynx are using this burn perhaps more than some of us thought,” Vanbianchi said.
The goal of the research is not just to document whether and how many lynx are returning to the regenerating forest, but to understand how lynx use areas that burned at different levels of severity.
Lost habitat
Ultimately, Vanbianchi hopes to provide information that will guide forest management to help lynx survive in a future of climate change-driven megafires.
The massive Tripod Fire left behind swaths of severely burned trees, and patches that were less burned, or that the fire skipped entirely.
“Lynx did use some of those areas, which means we can’t dismiss burns as habitat, or treat them all the same. That burn, in the immediate aftermath, was a big net loss of habitat. Now we are looking at data that have lynx reoccupying the burn,” Vanbianchi said.
The researchers are gathering data on vegetation and fuels, creating a fuel map of the burned area by measuring tiny twigs to downed logs.
The information will show “how flammable the habitat patches lynx use are … how at-risk of fire different habitats are, with implications for potential management plans,” Vanbianchi said.
Burned forests are known to burn again after regrowing, and forest management planning to protect habitat needs to take that into account.
“Just as this burn seems to be coming back for lynx, it is transitioning back into a time of jeopardy for reburning,” Vanbianchi said.
“Hopefully we can give some guidance on balancing reducing fuels with conserving lynx habitat,” Vanbianchi said. Fuels reduction in previously burned areas could mean taking some of the current habitat through forest treatments like thinning or prescribed burning, in order to protect the larger habitat, she said.
The three-year research project will begin its second winter of trapping and collaring in January, Vanbianchi said. Researchers hope to collar four more lynx this winter.
Funding for the research comes from a grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, the U.S. Forest Service, Panthera, a nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving wild cats, and from individual donors.
