Canada lynx kits or kittens are usually born in May and raised by their mothers, according to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
The kits stay with their mom until the following spring.
The mom and kitten in this video by BDN contributor Allie Ladd don’t seem to be in any hurry, but they probably are looking for a meal.
Male lynx are around for breeding season but then return to their solitary lives, although they share territories with at least one female. Females will share territories with other females, and they hunt with their kittens to increase their chances of success, the MDIF&W website says.
The number of kittens a female produces can be directly linked to the abundance of snowshoe hares in Maine’s northern spruce and fir forests, according to a study done between 1999 and 2010 in a 154- square-mile area about 50 miles west of Ashland.
When snowshoe hares, the primary food source for lynx, were plentiful, the females in the study could have litters of up to five kittens. When food was more scarce, the litters would be smaller and not all of the female lynx reproduced, the study conducted by MDIF&W and U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife indicated.
Maine has an established breeding population of lynx, but there are indications that the animal could be moving into New Hampshire and Vermont, where lynx moms with babies have been sighted.
Lynx were once well established in those states, according to MDIF&W.