Meet Nadia: A Siberian lynx

Nadia is a pretty girl. She was bred in a private zoo in South Carolina owned by a mentor of Charlie Sammut, the director of the Monterey Zoo. Nadia has lived happily at the Monterey Zoo where zoo attendants regularly put a leash on her and allow her to walk about the grounds. She enjoys a good sniff, scratch and roll on the grass. She came to the zoo more than 10 years ago and is considered one of the most popular animals residing there.

“Look what I got,” Sammut said while holding a treat under Nadia’s nose.

Cat lovers are immediately drawn to the many similarities small wild cats such as the Siberian lynx have with the domestic ones they know so well. Like house cats, lynxes purr, growl, hiss, and chatter at prey. They too will use feces, urine, and scratch marks to identify the limits of their territory.

The term Siberian is interchangeable with Eurasian. The lynx ranged across all of Europe, Asia and North America. As regional populations became increasingly isolated various differences became distinct among them. None was as cut-off as the ancestors of our bobcats, originally descended from the Eurasian lynx. Bobcats are smaller and have adapted to a wide range of habitats from the North Woods to Florida, across the south to California and down to Central Mexico. They are absent from only those large tracks of farmed land in the Mid-West.

Many of the native lynx populations throughout Europe were considered extirpated (extinct locally) in all but a few locations such as the mountains of Spain, Romania and the Balkans and old forests in Poland, Slovakia, and Scandinavia. But within the past 20 years efforts by nearly all countries in Western, Southern and Central Europe have reintroduced breeding populations which have reestablished healthy populations in protected forested lands.

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The lynxes' main predators are human beings who hunted them for their fur. But with the dramatic change in attitudes toward wearing coats made of animal fur, they’ve stopped being hunted. It took 14 lynx pelts to manufacture one coat.

“Shoot low and up and the cat looks bigger,” Sammut recommended as Nadia leaned against his side and I tried photographing her.

Although considered a “small cat” species, full grown lynxes are the size of most spaniels. Their characteristic attributes are their bobbed tails and tufted ears. As lynxes and bobcats hunt for food by stalking their prey, the short tails are not a hindrance. Most other cat species use their long tails as a rudder to give them balance as they ambush and chase down their kill.

Both lynxes and bobcats inhabit part of the ecosystem which is vital for controlling rabbit and gopher populations. Their preferred habitat is dense forest. They are capable of bringing down deer and reindeer nearly three times their size but in those circumstances, it’s more likely they are culling the herd, selecting the older, sickly or injured members.

Lynx have webbed and very furry feet which serve as snowshoes, allowing them to support their weight while crossing heavy snow. The lynx also sheds its fur according to the season. A whiter coat in winter and a spotted brown one in summer help their camouflage. They sneak up on their prey and can’t risk being seen, then pounce.

They have very keen vision and can spot a mouse 250 feet away. The tufts on their ears also increase their hearing and help them locate prey under leaves and snow drifts.

Lynx are solitary animals active in the earlier morning and evening hours. Their diet is wide ranging including rodents, deer, insects, birds, and carrion. The lynx population in Siberia is extensive and not threatened.

Scientists are divided as to whether all lynx are all the same species with regional variations, thus considered sub-species or truly individualized. The four major groups would be the Eurasian, Iberian, Canadian, and bobcat.

Mating occurs in late winter and females have one to four kittens in the spring. Mortality rates for kittens are high as they often share the same habitat with Golden Eagles and coyotes.