Bigger Lynx Area Proposed

The federal government on Thursday increased by 26 times the amount of Minnesota forest considered "critical habitat” for the lynx forest cat.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service revised its critical habitat plan for Minnesota lynx from 317 square miles proposed in 2006, all within Voyageurs National Park, to 8,266 square miles.

The new area includes almost all of the Minnesota Arrowhead east of U.S. Highway 53, in Koochiching, St. Louis, Lake and Cook counties. About 65 percent is state or federal land.

Nationally, the federal agency is proposing 42,753 miles as critical for lynx in Minnesota, Maine, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Washington. That’s 20 times the agency’s slimmed-down habitat plan proposed in 2006 and comes after environmental groups sued the agency to beef up the plan.

All proposed habitat areas have recent verified records of lynx and lynx reproduction, agency officials said.

A federal judge ruled that the government must revisit the lynx habitat issued after allegations that Julie MacDonald, former Interior Department deputy assistant secretary, wrongly interfered with scientific findings in the decisions. She has since resigned.

The agency in 2005 proposed 3,546 square miles of Minnesota forest be named critical for the lynx. After MacDonald’s intervention, that number was cut to 317 square miles.

Designation as critical habitat increases federal scrutiny of land use, but it doesn’t mean the land can’t be used for logging, hunting or other activities, Phil Delphey, endangered species biologist for the U.S. Forest Service in the agency’s Twin Cities field station, told the News Tribune.

Instead, any federal agency conducting business within that area must check with the Fish and Wildlife Service first to make sure proposed action doesn’t hurt lynx or their habitat. In addition, even private activities could be limited if they were found to threaten the entire lynx population.

"It’s not cutting a few trees; it’s got to be something with broad impact,” Delphey said.

Lynx were once common in northern Minnesota but declined through the 1980s and 1990s.

Lynx were listed as a federally threatened species across the northern tier states in 2000. While some state wildlife experts estimated few if any lynx lived in Minnesota at that time, surveys, public reports and DNA testing have determined that dozens, perhaps hundreds of lynx have been in the state recently and that they are mating and reproducing here.

Still, biologists say lynx numbers here are highly variable and fluctuate based on populations of snowshoe hares here and in nearby areas of Canada.

Researchers say that lynx in Minnesota need both large areas of recently logged or burned forest where young aspen trees encourage hares, but also nearby areas of thick conifers where they can find solitude and raise their young.

To get involved

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will accept public comments on the critical habitat plan until April 28. A public information meeting is set for March 25 at the Inn on Lake Superior in Duluth starting at 6:30 p.m.

Comments and information may be sent electronically to the Federal eRulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov or hand-delivered to the Division of Policy and Directives Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 4401 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 222, Arlington, VA 22203.