BigHornRam
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DENVER - Colorado's top wildlife officer said Wednesday the state is trying to protect the endangered lynx from modern-day perils, but some environmentalists are using the cats' survival as an argument in broader debates about land use.
"The key concept is whether lynx can live in Colorado today, not the Colorado of 100 years ago," state wildlife director Bruce McCloskey told the Legislature's Joint Agriculture Committee.
"This is not a mechanism to modify land use decisions, this is a mechanism to see if lynx can live in Colorado today," he said during a briefing on the 6-year-old effort to reintroduce the animals in Colorado.
McCloskey said sufficient protections are in place to ensure the tufted-eared, long-haired cats can survive.
He defended a decision by White River National Forest managers in February to delete rules protecting the lynx from their management plan after objections from high-ranking officials of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service.
Rick Cables, regional director for the Forest Service, told the committee the change was made to avoid duplicating rules already in force under Forest Service manuals.
The change also eliminated a requirement that proposed projects in the White River with the potential to affect lynx must include an assessment of ecological conditions.
When the changes were announced in February, USDA officials said there was no evidence that the cats existed in the 2.3 million-acre White River in the central and western Colorado mountains.
State officials responded that radio tracking data indicates lynx do roam there.
Cables said information about the presence of lynx in the White River will be incorporated into a new management plan for six national forests in the Southern Rockies Region, expected to be in place next year.
About 170 lynx from Canada have been released in the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado. Biologists believe up to 105 are still alive. Others have died or left the research area.
Transplanted lynx gave birth to 52 kittens in 2003 and 2004, although not all survived.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the lynx a threatened species in the lower 48 states in March 2000. It is considered endangered in Colorado n a more serious category n where the last confirmed sighting before the recovery program was in 1973 near Vail.
Jacob Smith of the Center for Native Ecosystems told lawmakers the Colorado lynx are not out of danger.
"We can produce all the lynx kittens in the world, but if we don't also protect sufficient lynx habitat, at some point those two needs will collide and we will not succeed in recovering a self-sustaining lynx population, which is clearly the goal of this effort," Smith said.
"The key concept is whether lynx can live in Colorado today, not the Colorado of 100 years ago," state wildlife director Bruce McCloskey told the Legislature's Joint Agriculture Committee.
"This is not a mechanism to modify land use decisions, this is a mechanism to see if lynx can live in Colorado today," he said during a briefing on the 6-year-old effort to reintroduce the animals in Colorado.
McCloskey said sufficient protections are in place to ensure the tufted-eared, long-haired cats can survive.
He defended a decision by White River National Forest managers in February to delete rules protecting the lynx from their management plan after objections from high-ranking officials of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service.
Rick Cables, regional director for the Forest Service, told the committee the change was made to avoid duplicating rules already in force under Forest Service manuals.
The change also eliminated a requirement that proposed projects in the White River with the potential to affect lynx must include an assessment of ecological conditions.
When the changes were announced in February, USDA officials said there was no evidence that the cats existed in the 2.3 million-acre White River in the central and western Colorado mountains.
State officials responded that radio tracking data indicates lynx do roam there.
Cables said information about the presence of lynx in the White River will be incorporated into a new management plan for six national forests in the Southern Rockies Region, expected to be in place next year.
About 170 lynx from Canada have been released in the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado. Biologists believe up to 105 are still alive. Others have died or left the research area.
Transplanted lynx gave birth to 52 kittens in 2003 and 2004, although not all survived.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the lynx a threatened species in the lower 48 states in March 2000. It is considered endangered in Colorado n a more serious category n where the last confirmed sighting before the recovery program was in 1973 near Vail.
Jacob Smith of the Center for Native Ecosystems told lawmakers the Colorado lynx are not out of danger.
"We can produce all the lynx kittens in the world, but if we don't also protect sufficient lynx habitat, at some point those two needs will collide and we will not succeed in recovering a self-sustaining lynx population, which is clearly the goal of this effort," Smith said.
