This is from Marty Stouffer’s “Wild America” series. And yes, Stouffer was known for contriving scenes!
I have no idea why the Canada lynx is so specialized. It makes absolutely no sense. Bobcats and Eurasian lynx are definite generalist predators, but this cat might as well be the giant panda.
If anyone has any idea of why this cat is so specialized, please pass it along to me!
I promise that this will be the last lynx post for a while.
Well, up there north is not much other potential prey of similar size for the lynx to choose from so I guess that specialization was quite a logical way to increase the hunting success. In general most of the lynx species (with the exception of Eurasian lynx) specialized in hunting lagomorphs in order to escape competition with larger felids – cougar in America, leopard and lion in Europe.
I guess that these shots are from captive lynx presented with the rabbit, right?
Best wishes from Slovenia,
Miha
Bobcats are not specialized. They hunt rabbits and just about everything else, but I can see what you mean about specialization in the Pleistocene Arctic.
Marty Stouffer was notorious for this sort of film.
Is your organization involved in Eurasian lynx conservation?
I’ve been told that a bobcat is basically a dwarf Eurasian lynx.
We basically work on research of Eurasian lynx, but we are also involved in conservation projects and try to do as much public awareness actions as possible. Currently we also work on possibilities of additional introductions of lynx to the Dinaric population, which is apparently suffering from inbreeding problems (after extermination, lynx was reintroduced to Slovenia in 1973, but entire populations stems from only 6 founders).
I’m not very familiar with bobcat, but the Eurasian lynx is in most parts of his range specialized for hunting roe deer (in some areas also chamois, red deer, reindeer), which is larger in size compared to the predator. Therefore the Eurasian lynx has to hunt only once a week and return to his kill for several days (if interested at this link there are several video clips which a recorded with automatic video system at lynx kills in the wild: http://www.dinaris.org/Multimedija – sorry the page is currently only in Slovenian, but the video clips should be understandable). So in this respect, I guess that Eurasian lynx is ethologically and ecologically more similar to cougar or leopard than to bobcat.
As far as I know the ancestor of all present day lynx species (Lynx issiodorensis) adapted primarily to hunting lagomorphs. Some of his descendants than changed to hunting ungulates (Eurasian lynx) or became more generalized small-mammal predators (bobcat), while others still focus on hares or rabbits (Canadian & Iberian lynx),
I see.
So the ancestor was a rabbit/hare specialist, and the Canada lynx is the relict species that still has that trait.
I did a piece on Canada lynx in Newfoundland, where there were no snowshoe hares. When those were introduced, their population exploded. It continued to do so until the population crashed. Then the Canada lynx went after the Arctic hares, which almost went extinct. They even went after the caribou (wild reindeer) calves, but they were poor predators of these animals. They bit the calves and that introduced a bacteria into them, which killed them. They actually infected so many caribou during this hare population drop that the caribou became rather rare, too.
Bobcats can be larger than Canada lynx, though usually not. And they eat rabbits and snowshoe hares (they live too far south for Arctic hares), but they also eat game birds, squirrels, and winter weakened white-tailed deer. This bobcat even caught a snake: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_UV9jSNGDpqU/SoOTmlIeZYI/AAAAAAAADAw/J9_CbvHOIMY/s400/Bobcat+wirth+snake-5236.jp
Hi to all:
I am new here, and not much computer savvy.
One question: Anyone on here have specific information (population estimates, core areas, etc.) on fishers in WV?
I am a Clarksburg area resident, with a cabin in the Pickens,WV area.
I don’t know if there are any fishers at Pickens (I used to live at Buckhannon), but I do know that they were reintroduced to Canaan Mountain in Tucker County and Cranberry Glades in Pocahontas County.
There are enough fishers in West Virginia, that a trapper can harvest one fisher per trapping season. They have also colonized adjacent Virginia and Garrett County, Maryland from those West Virginia releases, so maybe there are a few in that part of Randolph County.