Nature has bestowed on the lynx a snowshoe fixation so that he spends his nights and days thinking and dreaming of rabbit dinners. So dependent has he become on the rabbit for his main course that his numbers flourish and wane in the wake of rabbit statistics.
During the period between 1954 and 1956, when lynx were abundant in the park, I made a study of their food habits by analyzing several hundred lynx scats. In addition to rabbits, the lynx had fed considerably on ptarmigan and in summer on ground squirrels. This part of the diet increased as the rabbits decreased. But with the decline of the rabbits, the supplemental foods did not suffice to maintain the population, and the lynx became scarce.
Lynx.
In the winter of 1907-08, Charles Sheldon noted two instances of lynx preying on sheep. The rabbit population had crashed and the lynx had turned to other sources for survival. One lynx that made its attack on a sheep from ambush found the prey rather large, for in the ensuing struggle he received some severe bruises. He apparently was driven to hunting animals out of his class. About 2 years after rabbits disappeared in the Kuskokwim River region a number of years ago, lynx did some preying on reindeer in winter by leaping on their backs and biting the neck. The lynx were said to have attacked the reindeer only that one winter. During periods of food scarcity, lynx have also been observed to prey on each other.
The young are born in May in a cave, or perhaps more often, under a windfall. The gestation period is about 60 days.
In early June, 1955, I saw a lynx in the spruce woods near Savage River. As I stood watching I heard crying sounds up in the woods. The lynx disappeared in the direction of the crying. I followed and saw the parent under a windfall as it was departing with a baby in its mouth, the last of a litter it was moving. Snow and rain had fallen and the mother was carrying her family, one by one, from under an inadequate windfall to another about 250 yards away. The new home was under a brushy spruce that provided a dry shelter in any kind of weather. So well hidden and secure did the mother feel that she barely opened her sleepy eyes even when approached within 20 feet.
How empty the woods and willow patches become with the decline of the rabbits and the departure of the lynx. It is like an empty stage after the actors have finished their play and departed. Scattered through the quiet woods are their signs of life and activity, but the action has stopped. On the tall willows, 6 feet from the ground, is the gnawed white rabbit-line, where rabbits had sat on the snow and gnawed the bark within reach. In places the ground is littered with severed twigs, many of them partially gnawed. And everywhere one encounters tufts of rabbit fur and hind legs, left on the green moss, signifying rabbit tragedies and lynx banquets. But the rabbits will return again to dance in the moonlight, and the lynx will be back in his rich domain walking with stately and regal step.
Wolverine
Gulo hylaeus
The fabulous wolverine is a powerful and picturesque member of the weasel tribe weighing up to 35 pounds or more. Because of his stocky build and long hair, he resembles a small bear. Frequently the large hoary marmot is mistaken for him—there is considerable similarity. But the broad yellowish-tan stripe on the sides of the body is distinctive. A whitish collar, not always visible, extends across the throat. The tail is short and bushy; the sharp, well-developed claws are whitish. His range is circumpolar and extends southward in the mountains to Colorado and California, but he is now scarce south of Canada.