Biden Administration proposes 7,700-sq. miles in Colorado for critical lynx habitat

December 4, 2024

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is proposing to designate nearly 7,700 square miles of west-central and southwestern Colorado as critical habitat for Canada lynx, a species classified as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Colorado’s critical habitat area already harbors a lynx population of 75-150 resident lynx resulting from translocations from Canada and Alaska in 1999-2006. FWS has determined that this Southern Rockies lynx population currently exhibits moderate resiliency.

About 90 percent of the proposed critical habitat in Colorado is federally administered land, but 9 percent is private land, with the remainder consisting of land owned by Tribal, state, or local governments. The proposal would designate 684-square miles of private land in Colorado as critical lynx habitat, but this designation doesn’t authorize FWS to regulate private actions or to access private property and does not affect landowner actions that do not require federal funding or permits.

According to FWS, management of the Southern Rockies critical habitat “may require special management considerations or protection to address activities that may result in removal or reduction of boreal/subalpine forest conditions that support Canada lynx and snowshoe hares.” Those activities include road construction and maintenance, and commercial, recreational, and energy/mineral development “when they remove or reduce boreal forest in a manner that impacts snowshoe hare densities, the size of suitable habitat patches to support breeding lynx populations, and permeability of landscapes for lynx daily movements and dispersal in this unit.”

RECOVERY PLAN

In addition to the critical habitat proposal, FWS also released a recovery plan for lynx in the Lower 48 states with focal points on five breeding lynx populations: Northern Cascades; Northern Rockies; Midwest; Northeast; and Southern Rockies. Although the Greater Yellowstone Area of Wyoming is also a focal point, that area does not have a breeding lynx population, leading FWS to propose eliminating 8,000-square miles from Wyoming’s critical habitat designation.

The greatest threat to the lynx is global climate change, according to FWS, which threatens the long-term conservation of lynx as well as their boreal forest habitats. The plan emphasizes the need for “intentional, proactive forest management to reduce the likelihood of climate-mediated catastrophic wildfires and insect outbreaks in lynx habitats.”

Lynx populations in the Lower 48, which FWS collectively calls a “distinct population segment,” function as sub-populations or southern extensions of larger lynx populations in Canada. This U.S. lynx population is expected to retain federal protection for at least the next two decades, since the plan’s recovery criteria include minimum population sizes for each focal area that are needed “over a consecutive 20-year period.” For Colorado, the minimum population needs to be at least 100 lynx.

FWS stated that this 20-year recovery period is necessary as it “corresponds to two lynx population (irruption) cycles and approximately five lynx generation times.” An irruption is a mass lynx dispersal event that occurs following cyclic declines in snowshoe hare populations (which tend to occur about every decade).

Within critical habitat, permanent habitat loss is limited to no more than 5 percent of the lynx habitat over a consecutive 20-year period. This threshold applies to anthropogenic changes that convert habitat to nonforest (human developments or highways) or convert boreal forest to another vegetative type that do not provide lynx habitat. FWS specifically noted that this threshold does not apply to changes in forest structural stage. FWS stated that disturbances such as timber harvest or wildfires may result in temporary reductions in habitat quality but do not result in permanent habitat loss. The federal agency pointed out that landscape-level clear-cutting 35 to 50 years ago in the Northeast resulted in currently high hare densities and atypically high lynx numbers with subsequent regeneration of dense conifer forest. As those stands mature, they are expected to support lower hare densities and fewer lynx.

In a species assessment published last year, FWS stated that as a species, Canada lynx remains widespread and abundant over most of its range. It stated, “Overall, even in a warming climate, the species is not considered to be at risk of extinction, despite uncertainty about how climate change might affect northern lynx and hare populations and cycles and those of other hare predators.”

The proposed critical habitat rule is subject to a public comment period through Jan. 28, 2025. The Southern Rockies proposal includes portions of the following counties: Archuleta, Boulder, Chaffee, Clear Creek, Conejos, Dolores, Eagle, Gilpin, Grand, Gunnison, Hinsdale, La Plata, Lake, Mineral, Montezuma, Montrose, Ouray, Park, Pitkin, Rio Grande, Saguache, San Juan, San Miguel and Summit counties, and northern New Mexico in portions of Rio Arriba County.

Read all the details online at: https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp/species/3652.

Source: Cat Urbigkit, The Fence Post Magazine