A piece dedicated to one of the four living Lynx species.
"We know how to know and how to think, how to exhibit what is known to heaven’s bright ignorant eye, how to be busy and to multiply. He knows how to walk into the trees alone not looking back, so light on his soft feet he does not sink into the snow. How to leave no track, no sound, no shadow. How to be gone."
-Ursula K. Le Guin
(The Canada Lynx, Late in the Day: Poems 2010-2014)
Every month, I get together with some Nature Illustrator friends and work on an animal-themed piece.
For January, we chose species impacted by the revocation of key Endangered Species Act protections in the US. I chose the Canada Lynx because it felt more personal.
The Canada Lynx relies on cold, dense boreal forests and deep snow conditions that give it a hunting advantage.
Habitat fragmentation, climate change, and weakened environmental protections threaten these conditions.
Think of the Canada lynx as being caught in a high-stakes legal tug-of-war. While it currently holds “threatened” status, 2025 policy shifts are basically rewriting the rulebook.
By redefining “harm” to exclude habitat loss and shortening the “foreseeable future” to just a few decades, the government can legally brush aside the long-term climate threats these cats face.
On top of that, new mandates to weigh economic impacts mean industrial interests, like logging or mining can now take priority over the critical habitat these animals need to survive. Essentially, these moves provide the “legal mechanics” to bypass habitat protections and could pave the way to restart the delisting process through a much narrower, profit-driven lens.
