Lynx and Biologists Try to Recover After Disastrous Start

Abstract

CONSERVATION BIOLOGYA $1.4 million program to bring the dwindling Canada lynx back to Colorado is mired in controversy after five animals starved to death earlier this year. Some critics maintain that the effort was doomed from the start: Even before the first lynx were flown in from Canada late last year, analyses had suggested that the animal's main winter prey, the snowshoe hare, was in perilously short supply. Scientists at the Colorado Division of Wildlife regret the starvation deaths but defend the reintroduction, which they claim may be their best shot at bringing the lynx back to Colorado.