MAINE BOATS • March/April 2022
Maine has likely been home to lynx since the last remnants of glacial ice melted about 11,000 years ago. The species is a survivor, but climate change poses the most serious threat to Maine’s federally threatened lynx population. By 2100, unless rising carbon dioxide levels are drastically lowered, the state’s spruce-fir forests will die out, along with our lynx populations. Furthermore, warmer, wetter Maine winters are changing the snow composition from powder to thick crust. Lynxes require deep, powdery snow (with a minimum 106-inch annual snowfall) to maintain a competitive advantage over bobcats and, especially, fishers, their primary predator. Some Mainers welcome easier winters in the decades ahead, but for the lynx, they will mean an end to the Maine woods they call home. ~ Ron Joseph