Biologists Finally Know What’s Killing Maine’s Lynx — It’s Half Their Size

In the deep snow of northern Maine, an adult Canada lynx should have almost nothing to fear. No wolves, no mountain lions, no wolverines, bears asleep, coyotes sinking in the snow. Then radio collars started going still, and the crew who answered them kept finding cats dragged, hidden, and partly eaten. Over twelve years, Maine biologists worked every suspect: starvation, people, coyotes, other lynx. The bite marks and the tracks in the snow pointed to a ten-pound member of the weasel family that had never been documented killing a lynx anywhere. Then the evidence raised a harder question. Why was the killer thriving in the one corner of Maine where deep snow used to keep it rare, and what happens as Maine's forests age, hares thin out, and winters warm? In this episode: the first kill site, the starvation test, the bite-width evidence, the broken-tooth clue, the fisher's own near-extinction and comeback, the snowstorm ambush pattern, the switch from female to male lynx when hares crashed, and the trend lines that make this case unfinished. 📁 FREE Frontier Evidence File for this episode: the timeline of all 14 confirmed kills, the suspect-elimination table, the bite-width comparison, the forest, hare and snow trends, and every study cited. Download it here: drive.google.com/file/d/1Izmkq6MuRSgwvphc9ENrtUze9830di5s/view?usp=sharing TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 Intro 1:44 The Lynx Boom in Maine's North Woods 3:18 An Animal With Nothing to Fear 6:19 The Suspect List 9:33 The Fisher 11:34 The Evidence in the Paper 13:45 Why Here, Why Then 18:26 Limits and the Changing Forest Key sources: McLellan et al. (2018), Journal of Wildlife Management: fisher predation on Canada lynx in Maine Krohn, Elowe & Boone (1995), Forestry Chronicle: fishers, snow and martens in Maine Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife: Canada lynx profile and fisher assessment Evans & Mortelliti (2022), Ecosphere: marten and fisher occupancy across Maine U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (2024): Canada lynx recovery plan Where are you watching from? And before this video, which animal would you have named as the killer? #CanadaLynx #Fisher #MaineWildlife #FrontierEvidence #WildlifeScience #NorthWoods #Predators