When Kip Stransky retired after working 30 years for the Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW), his last five years on lynx reintroduction, his colleagues gave him shit, literally. Poop on a plaque. And he could not have been happier. Stransky’s so proud of his unusual retirement gift that “It hangs on my living room wall, and it’s quite a conversation piece,” he says. The plaque reads “The fruit of your labors.” Covered with a light coat of shellac is genuine lynx poop glued to mahogany and naturally imbedded with rabbit hair “probably from a bunny that I purchased somewhere,” Stransky says with a smile.

Working with lynx can be like that. You get dedicated to the three foot long, 20-30 lb. cats with their beautiful silver-and-gray coats, huge ear tuffs, and black-tipped tails. Stransky’s job was bunnies. Lots of bunnies. Stransky was the rabbit man, and in the complicated world of reintroducing an endangered predator, Stransky’s position as wildlife technician was to find food to keep Canada lynx alive as they adjusted to Colorado in a secure Division of Wildlife Rehabilitation Center near Monte Vista, Colo. It wasn’t easy. He had to convince bunny breeders across four states to sell him between 1,500 and 2,000 four-pound rabbits a year. In Price, Utah, Shiprock, N.M. and Grand Junction, Colo., he would meet rabbit raisers with a horse trailer full of cages to buy live bunnies to stockpile for the approximately 50 lynx a year the DOW wanted to release into the San Juan and Rio Grande National forests, which had been the southern range of lynx before they had been trapped almost to extinction.

Managing this rare species has put Colorado’s Division of Wildlife at the forefront of endangered feline reintroduction in the American West. Stransky explains, “We learned so much from this program. The Division of Wildlife was on the leading edge of doing a predator re-introduction with cats. It will benefit other states and other agencies. There were no protocols or guidelines to go by. The research had not been done. We had to write the book.”

Started with the best of intentions under DOW director and conservation biologist John Mumma, lynx reintroduction began poorly. Captured Canada lynx, released in the spring, died — three of starvation and one was badly malnourished when it was recaptured. At the University of Colorado, students held candelight vigils to mourn the lynx loss. There had been almost no research on lynx reintroduction and wildlife biologists had not adequately prepared the lynx. They learned.

That put Stransky in the bunny business looking for fresh food for furry friends. The failure of the “hard release,” resulted in a dramatic rethinking of how to put lynx into the wild with the goal of fattening them up to adjust to their new mountain home. But feeding captured lynx rabbits and roadkill was the least of DOW’s worries.

There were angry farm and ranch groups terrified of these small, elusive, gray-and-white cats with their huge back paws up to eight inches wide — perfect for traveling in snow in the same deep powder that has made Colorado an international ski destination. There were irate loggers, worried ski industry executives and even arsonists and eco-terrorists, who in 1998 fire-bombed a ski lodge near Beaver Creek, Colorado close to Vail where the last confirmed lynx had been illegally trapped in 1973. Arsonists started eight separate fires, destroyed three buildings and damaged four chairlifts in a $12 million crime. In an e-mail to a Denver radio station, members of the Earth Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the fires and said that Vail’s expansion would “ruin the last, best lynx habitat in the state. Putting profits ahead of Colorado’s wildlife will not be tolerated . . . We will be back if this greedy corporation continues to trespass into wild and unroaded areas.”

Clearly, this small, stunningly beautiful cat with its oversized paws and its large pointy ears, stirs controversy though it is rarely seen. It’s the mystery cat of the southern Rockies and a vital link in the predator-prey food chain, which conservation biologists seek desperately to maintain despite increasing habitat fragmentation. Also missing from the San Juans are grey wolves and grizzly bears, though DOW director John Mumma knew that the great bears would never be brought back to their historic range. No stranger to controversy, Mumma supported his staff in bringing back lynx. It was a fateful decision, and one of the best he ever made.

Tall, handsome, with a shock of white hair, a commanding presence, alert eyes and a soft voice, Mumma began a distinguished U.S. Forest Service career in Wyoming and later became regional forester of the Northern Region, which is all national forests in Montana, north Idaho and grasslands in the Dakotas. He helped create federal wilderness areas in Wyoming and established important policies that shifted the U.S. Forest Service away from its focus on timber cuts toward a more balanced multiple-use approach originally set forth by President Theodore Roosevelt and Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot.   Mumma wasn’t just worried about trees, he was concerned about habitat and endangered species.  

His leadership on the national level included participation on the federal team that brought wolves back to Yellowstone National Park. For his numerous contributions to conservation biology, he was awarded the Aldo Leopold Lifetime Achievement Award in Conservation. On a DOW float trip down the Dolores River in May 1997, Mumma and DOW staff talked about wild animals that had disappeared in their lifetimes. Late into the second night, sitting around a campfire and passing a bottle of bourbon, six biologists and game wardens discussed bringing one species back. Mumma recalls, “I just made the decision right then that yes, we were going to do it. Let’s just settle this argument once and for all about whether there are any lynx in the state. Let’s go get’em and bring them back in and then we’ll have’em.” The plan for lynx reintroduction was born.

But lynx live where skiers ski. The felines prefer habitat between 8,500 and 11,000 feet, and they’ve been known to den in timber above 11,000 feet. They like the krumholz or the low-growing vegetation just above timberline. By reintroducing lynx, DOW staff knew they were about to make their professional lives more difficult. They knew there’d be long days tramping through deep snow or riding in small airplanes trying to catch faint signals from the cats’ radio tracking collars.

The biologists knew there’d be shouts of criticism as well as applause, but they did it for the lynx, and out of a belief in Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic and the understanding that biodiversity means having as many species as possible in their original habitat. No one thought it would be easy, but no one imagined the piles of paperwork or the professional protocols necessary to put a small predator back onto spruce-fir slopes in wilderness settings. Mumma explained, “We have a professional responsibility to try to maintain viable populations of all species in Colorado, and we also believe we have a moral obligation to do it.”

More than 40 percent of Colorado is public land managed by federal agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, with much of that land on the Western Slope. Game and fish species, however, are managed by the Colorado DOW. Since 1973, lynx had been listed in Colorado as endangered in the state, but a federal endangered species listing of lynx would have immediately transferred responsibility to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and created huge challenges for development anywhere on the Western Slope, which was thought to be prime lynx habitat. No one really knew. But rather than risk mandatory plans to preserve habitat for a mysterious species that had not been seen in 30 years, Mumma, a former federal forester, decided to pre-empt the feds.

He explains, “The lynx had come into prominence because of growth and development around ski areas, primarily Vail. The Vail area was the location for the last recorded taking of a lynx. With the potential threat of listing the lynx as an endangered species, the authority to manage them would have been taken from the state and reserved by the federal government, and that causes a series of chain reactions that are cumbersome. So . . . lynx became a big issue with the ski industry.”

In 1997, rather than plan for a ghost species that may or may not have been slinking around the state’s multimillion dollar ski resorts, Mumma and the DOW decided to capture Canada lynx, bring them to Colorado and let them adjust to transportation corridors, logging and ranching industries, and downhill skiers. It was a high-stakes gamble complete with lawsuits and outraged farm and ranch groups including the Farm Bureau and the Colorado Guide and Outfitters Association. Misinformed hunters were convinced that 30-lb. lynx would damage the state’s healthy deer and elk herds. In an unprecedented alliance, animal rights and sportsman’s groups aligned to malign the lynx out of fear that the small cats would develop a taste for venison or elk.  

Rick Kahn, a wildlife biologist and head of the Lynx Recovery Team, said it was “a very publicized reintroduction” that was “highly politically changed.” Hysteria ensued over bringing back a predator that Colorado pioneers had vigorously trapped, hunted and killed. It was a classic Old West/New West confrontation, but Mumma was ready for the naysayers because he knew the West had changed.

Survey data conducted by the DOW not only proved the Colorado public’s interest in wolf reintroduction but also its interest in lynx. Not a single federal dollar has gone to support Colorado lynx reintroduction. Funds have come from the DOW’s budget as well as Great Outdoors Colorado, the Colorado Lottery and even $250,000 from Vail Resort. Successful restoration of the species to its former habitat had to coincide with the 10-year predator-prey food cycle with snowshoe hares in Canada. Rather than having Canada trappers catch and kill lynx for their pelts, trappers were paid a higher amount to use live traps. Living lynx were then flown from Canada, where they are abundant, to the United States, where they had virtually disappeared. But it had to happen during an upswing in the lynx population, because nature rules.

When the snowshoe-hare population plummets in a natural decade-long cycle, so do numbers of lynx. Catching live lynx, getting them through customs as an endangered species, bringing them hundreds of miles south to Colorado and letting them go required intense consultation, federal and state permits, and a dedicated and committed staff.   Mumma had the staff, now he needed the lynx.

After two years of planning, public meetings, virulent e-mail exchanges, careful international negotiations and tightly worded agreements among the Colorado DOW, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, lynx re-introduction began near South Fork in 1999.   The elusive long-eared, big-footed cats were finally coming home. Each release was a special event. Ironically, after so much trouble, a few of the quiet cats refused to leave their steel cages. Mark Stiles, supervisor of the San Juan National Forest, remembers, “Mine wouldn’t leave. She wouldn’t come out of the gate. We stood for the longest time behind her in the cold and snow, and then finally she took off. She was the last one to leave.”

By 2005, 218 animals had been released. After eating Stransky’s dead bunnies, lynx have found their ecological niche and now munch on snowshoe hares, grouse, ptarmigan, squirrels and other small game including mice. In turn, lynx are eaten by coyotes. A few lynx have had difficulty adjusting to the San Juan Mountains.

Biologists released lynx with global positioning system tracking collars and have tracked their wanderings, some into Nebraska, New Mexico and Utah. One lynx, with a fondness for chickens, made it all the way to Cheyenne, Wyo., only to be caught raiding a chicken coop. Another lynx left the San Juan release site and walked through northern Colorado, into Wyoming, up through the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone and past Missoula, Mont., like he was headed back toward the Yukon. Not bad for a non-migratory animal!

But if some lynx have left the San Juans, others have been killed by humans both accidentally on highways and intentionally. One lynx was killed by a sheepherder convinced it would damage his flock. In October 2005, a lynx was killed and its radio collar turned off on Missionary Ridge near Durango. Another poacher placed a lynx collar in a Silverton mail slot. In 2006, two lynx were killed by poachers, one on Cement Creek above Silverton and one near Durango Mountain Ski Resort, resulting in a $12,000 reward and an ongoing investigation.

Since 2003, DOW biologists have visited 37 dens and found a total of 116 lynx. Proof of success seems to be lynx mating and giving birth in the wild. In 2006, seven years after the reintroduction began, a wild-born lynx gave birth to lynx kittens. Stiles notes that even if lynx are “not a real visible animal, the public has been very supportive. Most of the animals were introduced on the Rio Grande Forest, but they’ve moved west into the Weminuche Wilderness and San Juan National Forest where they are pretty well spread out.” Lynx tracks have been seen around abandoned mines near Red Mountain and by Lizard Head Pass near Telluride. German tourists have even traveled to Silverton seeking guides to show them lynx .

Lynx reintroduction got off to a fine start with “high-initial post-release survival.” DOW Assistant Director for Wildlife Programs Jeff Ver Steeg stated that 120 kittens have been born to reintroduced Canada lynx “proving that kittens born to released lynx can survive, establish territories, find mates and have kittens of their own.” But 2007 has proven more ominous. For the first time, no new kittens have been found this spring. Nada. Nothing. Zero.

Criteria for the success of lynx reintroduction include a successful release protocol, survival of lynx for extended periods in the wild, lynx developing specific territories, lynx breeding in the wild and live kittens. This year there are no kittens, and no one knows why.

Lynx never were numerous in the southern Rockies. Ute Indians have lived in the San Juans for hundreds if not thousands of years, and there’s no Ute word for the small felines, but why are there no lynx kittens for 2007? Is something happening to their food sources or habitat? Are there other unanticipated threats?

Since 1997, wildlife biologist Rick Kahn has headed the Lynx Recovery Team. He explains, “It’s too early to proclaim success. This year we’re not finding any kittens,” even though 30 radio-collared females paired up with males. Two years ago there were 150-200 lynx in Colorado and 47 kittens. This year, no new crop of kittens. The search is on for the missing lynx. Scientists want to weigh, measure and tag kittens with an alpha-numeric bar code that can link them to a specific female for tracking and genetic research.

Kahn adds, “There’s a lot of speculation as to what’s happening. We’re not sure when to apply lynx numbers at the low or high end of the cycle.” He cautions, “It’s been a roller coaster ride. The first four or five years of the program there was a lot of angst. It’s been a challenge. We just don’t know the science. We don’t know if lynx can survive in this landscape at the southern edge of their range.”

If lynx survive, it will be because of biologists like Kurt Broderdorp of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service whose job includes safeguarding lynx habitat around ski developments and transportation corridors. Because lynx in Colorado have been reintroduced, they are no longer endangered, but they are federally listed as “threatened” here and in 12 other states. Broderdorp explains, “When we listed the species in 2000, we knew they were here because the DOW put them here. There’s little difference between a threatened or endangered listing, but there’s more flexibility for management.”

Like other professionals securing a future for Colorado lynx, Broderdorp is passionate about the prospects. He says, “The state has reintroduced a top-tier predator which brings an ecosystem back into balance. From an ecological perspective, we’re bringing this predator back where it occurred, and this has positive psychological benefits to Colorado residents.”

In other words, we like our wilderness wild, and we like to know that somewhere out there at treeline, silky gray-and-white cats are softly padding on pine needles and spongy moss. Broderdorp states, “What I’ve enjoyed most in my seven years on this project is having people realize that this species is in trouble, and my job is to assist in moving lynx towards delisting and recovery. It could be as short as 10 years or maybe 50 years or maybe never.”

Conservation measures must be put into place at the same time that rapid growth continues to fragment habitat along the I-70 corridor on the Western Slope and along U.S. 550 and U.S. 160 in Southwest Colorado. New developments restrict the cats’ freedom of movement across the landscape, which is vital for genetic exchange and species health. Perhaps this year’s low reproduction rate is in direct response to a reduced snowshoe hare population. Broderdorp offers, “There’s usually a lag when the hare population crashes, so perhaps we’re seeing the lynx response to it. Whatever is happening seems to be happening on a large scale. It’s difficult to speculate on. We don’t have a clear understanding.”

What is known is what happened at Beaver Creek. After arsonists torched a ski lodge near Vail, it was rebuilt larger than ever with logs utilized from the forest, 12 miles of new roads constructed and 885 acres of clearcut in prime lynx habitat. Nothing stopped Vail’s expansion to become the largest ski area in the nation with 4,644 skiable acres. The rebuilt Two Elk Lodge at 11,220 feet is Vail’s showcase. It boasts a peak-season staff of 100, and seating for nearly 900 people, which is 200 more than the old lodge could accommodate. In jail, the suspected arsonist committed suicide. His accomplice is serving nine years in prison.

In the lower 48 states, Colorado’s Division of Wildlife leads in knowledge about lynx. Ten years after planning to reintroduce the endangered felines, Mumma, now retired as director of the DOW, explains, “By and large, 70 percent of Coloradoans have been really supportive of the program. Such strong public support has changed people who were on the fence.” So where are the missing lynx?  

In the forests, along the streams, silently padding along at the edge of snowline. Stransky has lynx poop on a plaque. He’d love to see one in the wild, gliding ghostlike through an aspen grove on a winter’s day. What happened to this year’s kitten crop? Will lynx survive in mountains becoming ever more popular for all season visitors? Only the lynx know, and they’re not telling. Perhaps half a century from now, we’ll know more.

Andrew Gulliford is a historian, photographer and professor of Southwest Studies and History at Fort Lewis College in Durango where he teaches environmental history and wilderness courses. He can be reached at Gulliford_a@fortlewis.edu.