Summit County Citizens Voice

An adult lynx in Colorado warily surveys its surroundings. The wild cats were recently named to a top-10 list of species most at risk from climate change impacts to habitat. PHOTO BY TANYA SHENK, Colorado Division of Wildlife.

Colorado high county could become a haven for global warming refugee species dependent on Alpine habitat

By Bob Berwyn

SUMMIT COUNTY — Endangered Canada lynx could become even more rare if the worst-case climate change scenarios play out as predicted in North America.

And if boreal habitat shrinks in other parts of the continent, the high country of Summit County — and the rest of Colorado — could become an important refuge for lynx and other species that need an alpine environment to survive.

The Endangered Species Coalition recently named lynx to to a  top-ten list of species at risk from global warming. The snow-loving cats are currently the subject of an ambitious Colorado reintroduction program, but they might to move to higher elevations if spruce and fir forests disappear from lower mountain slopes.

“Global warming is like a bulldozer, shoving species already on the brink of extinction perilously closer to the edge,” said Leda Huta, executive director of the Endangered Species Coalition. “Polar bears, lynx, salmon, coral and many other endangered species are already feeling the heat,” she said.

The top-ten list was included in a recent report from the Endangered Species Coalition, available online here. The report focuses on ten species that are listed or being reviewed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The global warming threats to these species include increased disease, diminished reproduction, lost habitat and reduced food supply.

Canada lynx numbers have declined throughout most of their range. Biologists estimate that fewer than 1,000 remain in the lower 48 states. In Colorado, lynx were hunted and trapped to oblivion as unwanted predators. Until the Colorado Division of Wildlife launched the reintroduction effort, the last officially confirmed sighting was near Vail in the 1970s.

In 1999, state biologists started releasing lynx from Canada and Alaska in the San Juans of southwestern Colorado, where they’ve established a core population. Since then, the cats have started to occupy former habitat elsewhere in the state, including on White River National Forest lands in Summit County, where parts of the Tenmile Range and the Vail Pass area have been identified as important habitat.

Summit County — and the rest of Colorado’s high-elevation lands — could prove especially important for the long-term survival of alpine species like lynx, said Paige Bonaker, a biologist with the Center for Native Ecosystems.

“Colorado’s mean elevation is higher than other areas where lynx live,” Bonaker said, comparing the state to areas in the northern Rockies where the cats are still more common, including Montana and Washington.

The preliminary results of some recent climate modeling experiments suggest that Colorado’s mountains could become a high-altitude island of refuge as forests disappear at lower elevations. Climate change could be especially devastating to Canada lynx since the cats are dependent on high elevation habitat with cold, snowy winters in order to maintain a competitive advantage over other predators.

That’s part of the reason that environmental groups have once again sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its decision to leave Colorado out of a critical habitat proposal for lynx. Click here for more information about lynx biology and the status of the cats in the southern Rockies.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated about 39,000 designated square miles in Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Washington as protected habitat for lynx. But the federal agency said it didn’t include the Southern Rockies because there isn’t a sustainable lynx population, although the 218 lynx released in the state have produced more than 100 offspring, including several second-generation kittens.

The groups involved in the suit are the Sierra Club, the Center for Native Ecosystems, and the Wild Rockies Alliance.

Filed under: Environment, public lands, Summit County Colorado, wildlife Tagged: | Breckenridge, endangered species, Environment, global warming, lynx, News, public lands, Summit County Colorado, Summit County News, wildlife