Canada lynx is a federally threatened species

This Project Grant award from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Fish and Aquatic Conservation - Aquatic Invasive Species (CFDA 15.608) federal grant program provides $120,000.00 to the Regents of the University of Minnesota to investigate habitat factors affecting snowshoe hare populations and map suitable Canada lynx habitat across the entire Canada lynx designated critical habitat (DCH) Unit 2 in northeastern Minnesota. The project will leverage high-density LiDAR (light detection and ranging) data to predict snowshoe hare densities across the full DCH Unit 2 area, which will inform lynx conservation efforts. Key deliverables include a technical report, peer-reviewed publication, spatial data geodatabase, and presentations to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies. The research aims to fill critical information gaps about lynx habitat quality and snowshoe hare availability across the full DCH Unit 2 region. The award period is from November 1, 2024 to June 30, 2026.

Currently northeastern minnesota is the only place where resident lynx currently reside within the great lakes region of the united states.over the last two decades lynx have been consistently present in certain areas of northeastern minnesota with some annual variation. Snowshoe hare are the main prey for lynx across their range including in minnesota. Past research has shown that minimum snowshoe hare densities are required to support lynx populations and that hare populations are high in lynx core use areas in minnesota. However current lynx research and management only take place in a subset of the entire lynx designated critical habitat (DCH) unit 2 and information on hare density and lynx habitat quality are not available across the entire unit 2.high density lidar (light detection and ranging sometimes called airborne laser scanning or laser altimetry) data have recently been collected across northern minnesota including the entire DCH unit 2. Lidar data provides accurate high resolution information on forest structure across large areas and can be used to map habitat features that snowshoe hares need such as dense understories broken forest canopies canopy cover and stem density. We will estimate snowshoe hare density in different forest cover types based on spring hare pellet collections and then use lidar data and forest cover type to predict hare densities across unit 2 of canada lynx critical habitat.objectives:1) identify factors affecting snowshoe hare presence and relative abundance.2) estimate current suitable habitat across full extent of canada lynx DCH unit 2 using lidar.deliverables:1) complete a technical report describing project results as well as a peer-reviewed publication. 2) provide a geodatabase of all spatial data (e.g., hare transects, intermediate and final lidar products, final hare density map). 3) present results to the united states fish and wildlife service and interested parties from state and regional agencies and other lynxgeographic units for potential replication. Reports and publication are expected during the final year, while we will present preliminary results after the first year (fall 2025 or winter 2025-2026) of the project.