Lynx Clearinghouse

This document is thanks to some remarkable initiative by biologists and land managers on the Kootenai National Forest. It is one of the few examples of an agency actively incorporating recommendations from a Western Forest Carnivore Committee memo dated several years before (see record for "USDA 1994"). This document appears to be a working draft, but proposes some important protocols to address threats to lynx, including the following:

Though any monitoring of the effectiveness of these standards are not yet conclusive, they represent an important start and should be immediately initiated elsewhere. The guidelines include the following stipulations regarding thinning in potential lynx foraging habitat (Appendix IX):
o 30% of each stand will be retained in an unthinned condition
o the remaining 70% will be thinned to no less than 1100 trees per acre, such that managers
o leave 600-800 trees per acre that are greater than 6 feet in height
o leave an additional 300-500 trees per acre that are 2 to 6 feet in height, favoring lodgepole pine, spruce, and subalpine fir
o ensure that brush cutting will be limited
o ensure that trees left than 2 feet may be removed or left in place.

Road density analysis is an important component of determining habitat security with Lynx Management Units on the Kootenai National Forest (see below). The Kootenai Forest uses a Risk Index whereby open road densities of less than 1 mile per square mile rate a "low" risk, 1-2 miles per square mile rate "medium," and greater than 2 miles per square mile rate "high" risk of mortality (p. 6-3). These proposed thresholds are preliminary, but represent an important first step toward quantifying the adverse effects of roads on lynx habitat, toward highlighting problem areas. Again, such analysis is very much consistent and should be coordinated with efforts to maintain and enhance habitat security for grizzly bears, elk, and other species.

At both the regional scale, and the local population scale, barriers to lynx movement must be considered because they may pose a major obstacle to the survival and recovery of lynx populations and metapopulations. This document attempts to address this issue on the Kootenai National Forest by first mapping lynx locations, and then identifying ten "areas of concern for lynx movement across the forest." The document directs that management activities within these areas be reviewed for their effects on maintaining connectivity for lynx across the Kootenai Forest (6).

We applaud the Kootenai National Forest for its precedence-setting work to address this unique and important threat to lynx, and urge other land managers to apply similar methodology throughout all areas of lynx habitat. The Kootenai Forest's Lynx Management Unit (LMU) areas correspond to the estimated home range sizes of female lynx in the area. Other considerations in delineating their LMU's are described in a USFS memo on the subject (1997):
o Areas need to be small enough to show effects of projects
o Areas need to contain all habitat components necessary to support female lynx (existing or potential)
o Areas need to be aggregated up to a larger scale for cumulative effects
o Planning sub-units make efficient analysis areas, as do compartments on some districts

"Blocks" of suitable habitat within each LMU were evaluated based on their area and proximity to other blocks of habitat, such that small blocks that were at the limits of daily movements of lynx (2-5 miles away) were not considered suitable. The LMU process is still in its preliminary stages on the Kootenai, but forest officials claim that the system will ensure that they fulfill their viability objectives for lynx as directed in the National Forest Management Act: "With this strategy, it is the Kootenai National Forest biologists consensus opinion that lynx persistence on the Kootenai National Forest is assured" (6-1, 6-2).