Author: Rebecca Williams

Managing Forests for the Lynx

  • Canada lynx are naturally rare in the U.S.: their populations fluctuate following the population cycles of snowshoe hare, their main prey. Photo by Erwin and Peggy Bauer: courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In the wake of last year’s decision by the Fish and Wildlife
Service to list the lynx as a threatened species, the Forest Service is
now considering whether it should improve the habitat for these shy
cats in the Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Rebecca Williams reports:

Deciding the Future of the Gray Wolf

Wolf advocates are rejoicing. The gray wolf has made a remarkable comeback in the Great Lakes states. Humans nearly drove them to extinction by the 1960s. But under the strict protection of the Endangered Species Act, gray wolves have slowly rebounded in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin. This recovery led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to propose last week (July 11, 2000) more lenient protections for the wolf. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams explains what the increased presence of wolves and their new status may mean for the human residents of the Great Lakes region: