Wild cats called lynx live in Canada’s boreal forest and other regions, but you rarely see them, much less get a chance to record them having a screaming, head-butting match. But CBC reports Ed Trist, his girlfriend and her daughter were travelling on a logging road in a remote part the province of Ontario when they came across two lynx doing just that.
The lynx ‘didn’t even care’
The group were in an off-road vehicle about 260km north of Toronto planning to catch some minnows for fishing bait. When they came across the lynx, they stopped about nine metres away and watched. Trist told CBC the cats “didn’t even care that we were there.”
It’s not clear what the animals were up to. The head veterinary at a zoo in Winnipeg said it was a little late in the season for it to be a dispute about breeding. He said it could have been two males competing for a female or simply a dispute about territory.
Furry feet help in snow
Lynx measure between 80 and 100 cm in length and stand between 48 and 56 cm tall at the shoulder. They weigh 5-18kg. They have large feet which in winter, are covered by a dense growth of coarse hair. This helps them travel over snow.
They have large eyes and ears which help them hunt their favourite prey, the snowshoe hare. Their range tends to vary along with the availability of the hares, available cover and the season.
Millions of views on Facebook
Trist and his girlfriend posted the video on their Facebook pages and between them received eight million views in two days. He told CBC he had been contacted by people all over the world and felt overwhelmed.
He said he planned to continue to look for lynx when out in the wild, but that he always is on guard for animal encounters because there are a lot of bears. You’ve got to love the remote regions of Canada!
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