Hut-tripping in Colorado’s mountains is often about deep powder on high-altitude slopes, telemark ski turns and excellent food cooked over wood stoves.
Now there’s an added dimension: tracking wildcats.
Managers of the 10th Mountain Division Huts are asking visitors to keep an eye out for evidence of lynx — tufted-eared, long-legged wildcats reintroduced to the state in 1999.
In a partnership announced Monday, the Division of Wildlife will distribute lynx tracking forms to 31 10th Mountain Division huts this winter, which attract about 49,000 visits annually. The program began last year as a pilot.
“Wildlife research is difficult, so whenever we can get more eyes out there, it’s helpful,” said Division of Wildlife spokesman Joe Lew andowski.
When state wildlife officials called to pitch the hut-based program, it seemed like an obvious fit, said Ben Dodge, director of the 10th Mountain Division Hut Association, based in Aspen.
“We put a lot of people up in the high country, and we put them up into remote, high-elevation areas — which is a pretty good match to where the lynx are,” Dodge said.
All 10th Mountain huts now have laminated brochures that describe lynx tracks, said Jennifer Kleffner, a wildlife educator for the division’s Southwestern region. There are tips for photographing the paw prints and forms for reporting sightings.
Lynx tracks are unique because the cats’ furry paws blur prints, Kleffner said.
“They’re often described as softball-sized holes in the snow,” Kleffner said. “There’s very little definition because of the fur, but the size, about 4 inches across, is a real indicator.”
State trackers have used radio and satellite telemetry to track many lynx to the Leadville area — home to several 10th Mountain huts — and near Gunnison, Copper Mountain, Aspen and Eagle, Lewandow ski said.
Some lynx, however, have dropped their collars or the collars no longer work — and unofficial sightings sometimes help state wildlife officials find animals they assumed had died or were lost forever.
Between 1999 and 2006, the state released 218 lynx in southwestern Colorado — after trapping the cats from thriving populations in Alaska and Canada.
Considering the shooting and highway deaths of some of the cats, and the births of 116 kittens, there are probably 150 to 200 lynx in the state now, e w andowski said.
This year, there were no known litters, he said. “We had five good years of kitten births, but it dropped off in 2006,” Lew andowski said.
Wildlife biologists suspect that’s because one of the main prey of the cats — snowshoe hares — are becoming less plentiful, possibly a result of a natural cycle.
For now, the state will reintroduce no more lynx, he said, because no one wants to put more cats into an area where food sources may be scarce.
They will keep tracking them, however, and educating people about the program — with the help of 10th Mountain.
Katy Human: 303-954-1910 or khuman@denverpost.com
