"The objectives of this study were to obtain and synthesize the most up-to-date information available regarding the historic and present distribution of the lynx, south of Canada, and to document population trends. We also hoped to evaluate the implications of this information for lynx conservation and natural resource management." (4-5)

Discussion

"The information presented here suggests that downward trends in lynx abundance have occurred through most areas of lynx range in the contiguous U.S> and that lynx distribution is shrinking. Much of the decline has occurred during the last 2 decades. The middle-and-upper elevation forests that comprise lynx habitat are generally more recently-roaded and harvested than low elevation forests (Harris et al. 1982), helping explain why so dramatic a decline in lynx numbers has occurred so recently." (21)

"In other areas such as northwestern Montana and the Cascade Mountains, intensive logging results in habitat changes of paramount importance. While modified logging prescriptions could provide for showshoe hare requirements, standard procedures degrade or eliminate denning habitat and create forest openings far longer than lynx are willing to cross (Brittell et al. 1989)." (22)

"Other prescriptions such as 'seed tree harvests' open forest dramatically and are typically followed by slash burning. Functionally, such sites may differ little from clearcuts for fauna that depend on coarse woody debris." (23)

"... more than 200,000 acres are burned anually in Oregon and Washington for silvicultural puposes (Kauffman 1990). This action results in reduced structural heterogeneity at and near ground level in managed forests." (23)