Longer Lynx Comment
Period Not Certain

CASPER, Wyo. —(AP)— A decision to extend the comment period on a proposal to list the Canada lynx as threatened in the lower 48 states has not been made, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials said last Friday.

A letter, sent by Wyoming's senators and nine others, requested a 90-day extension of the Sept. 30 deadline, which was extended until Oct. 14 at the request of several Minnesota and Great Lakes area American Indian tribes, officials said.

In June, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed adding the lynx to the list of species protected by the Endangered Species Act.

However, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department maintains there is insufficient data to warrant listing the lynx and has expressed concern over shouldering the costs of endangered species protection.

Both state officials and the Nature Conservancy's Wyoming Natural Diversity Database were unable to provide estimates of the lynx population in Wyoming.

The Game and Fish Department is advocating an interim approach to lynx management, where the federal government funds state data-gathering and conservation efforts. State officials maintain Wyoming provides only marginal lynx habitat and that the species' distribution has changed little over time.

However, a Laramie-based environmental activist group disagrees with that assessment.

"There is plenty of information that shows the lynx needs to be listed — especially in Wyoming," Leila Stanfield, spokesperson for Biodiversity Associates and Friends of the Bow, said, "and they've known it for 25 years."

She did not or could not cite the purported information.

According to the group, the state agency has listed the lynx as a protected animal since 1973. However, it continues to allow trapping of other furbearing animals within lynx habitat. This trapping, the group claims, leads to the inadvertent killing of lynx.

State and federal agencies are also aware lynx and their habitat are in danger from timber harvest, oil and gas production and increased recreational uses, according to the activist group.

A spokesperson for the Intermountain Forest Industry Association in Rapid City, S.D., said activist groups and animal lovers try to use the Endangered Species Act as a tool to prevent timber and mineral extraction industries from gaining access to national forest land.

According to Tom Troxel, about half of the lands within the Shoshone and Bridger-Teton national forests, where lynx habitat exists, are in national parks or wilderness areas. Those designations, he said, provide sufficient protections.

Troxel said the association is writing a response to the Fish and Wildlife department.

"From the data we've seen," Troxel said, "we're not sure there is really any good lynx habitat in Wyoming or Colorado."

Officials from the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service could not be reached for comment.