Canada is a huge country with plenty of wildlife but it is a rare thing to see a mother lynx and her kittens sunning themselves in the middle of a highway. CBC reports that’s just what happened when Stan and Melody McKenzie recently went for a drive near Haines Junction in the northern territory of Yukon.
The two like to go driving in hopes of seeing wildlife they can photograph. The Yukon is sparsely populated and very much an unspoiled land.
Mom and kittens not shy
Stan first spotted one lynx, explained Melody to CBC host Leonard Linklater. As they were pulling over they saw a kitten and then four more.
The kittens appear to be a year old and none of the lynxes seemed perturbed by the human presence just six metres away. “During mating season they’re oblivious to everything around them but we certainly didn’t expect to see a mama and kittens and they just sat on the road and soaked up the sun a little bit,” said Melody.
Lynxes big furry feet good on snow
The lynx resembles a large house cat with a short tail, long legs and big furred feet which help it walk on snow. It lives right across Canada with the exception of the four eastern-most provinces.
The lynx is not fast, so it relies on stealth to catch its favourite prey, the snowshoe hare. It favours forested areas, particularly old growth boreal forests what have thick underbrush. Because hare have a tendency to quickly repopulate forests disrupted by fire or logging, lynxes thrive there too. They are also known to eat grouse, voles, mice, squirrels and foxes.
They normally live 15 to 20 years.
This lynx family knew well enough to leave the road and slink back into the woods when some traffic came along.
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