How can you participate?
Report your Canada Lynx sightings using the web map interface
How can you help?
- Report a lynx, track of scat sightings
- Past sightings can be reported, make sure you submit the year observed
- Tell a friend. The more people involved the greater the chance of project success!
- Subscribe to the email list
Why should you participate?
- We need your help to document lynx sightings across Newfoundland
- Lynx are rare, secretive and elusive, this makes it hard to study them
- Citizen scientist sightings could greatly improve our understanding of lynx distributions
- These observations will be used to inform resource management
Your contributions matter!
- Citizen sightings are an important part of scientific research and are often the foundation of ambitious research projects
- In recent years lynx have been understudied in Newfoundland
- Citizen sightings of lynx will provide us with valuable information from which we can learn more about:
- Distribution patterns
- Habitat associations
- Landscape movements
- Carnivore education in Newfoundland
Why is this important?
- Knowing where and why lynxes are strengthens our understanding of habitat associations
- Newfoundland provincial carcass program closure in 2016, we need to maintain a location database for this harvest
- Past management decisions relied solely on information from lynx carcasses submitted by hunters and trappers
- Citizen sightings of lynx can be used to fill information gaps left by the carcass closure
- Lynx are poorly understood, this project aims to educate the general public on Newfoundlands last remaining native predator
- Loss of habitat threatens lynx populations
- The health of lynx populations is tightly linked to snowshoe hare abundance and hare harvest should reflect this, sightings can be used to confirm this relationship