Maine biologists started using cameras to survey Canada lynx populations in 2005. Since then, the use of trail cameras placed by individual people who have an interest in wildlife have exploded.
This video by BDN contributor Allie Ladd, one of those individual people, shows a lynx hunting for food and also lying down to rest after a good meal.
Lynx eat snowshoe hare most of the time. When hare populations are low, the animal’s next choice is red squirrel. But it will eat other small mammals, birds and dead animals, and having food presented to it in the middle of winter is a gift it won’t pass up, according to state biologists’ study from 2012.
Lynx also use resting/hunting beds to wait for prey to come close enough for it to chase it down, the report said.
The big cat is considered passively territorial, which means it marks its area with scent, often through urination, and shows aggression with a low growl to warn intruders away, the biologists said.
Maine considers lynx a species of special concern, but on the federal level, it is designated as threatened. Biologists identified that low snow levels and habitat loss are the biggest risks that Maine’s lynx population faces.
Carrion, or dead animals, attract all sorts of meat-eating critters, including this coyote, which seems happy to have a free meal.
It’s uncertain how all of these wily hunters work out taking turns at the carcass, but they seem to manage.