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A Canada lynx released in Colorado — and last positioned in April 2007 — traveled 1,200 miles to Alberta in what was likely a record journey that ended in death in late January.

“It was an incredible trek,” said Gabriela “Gabby” Yates, the lynx project manager at the University of Alberta in Canada. “The fact of where this started, where it ended and the children this lynx had, it is really an incredible story.”

The male lynx, known by the scientific designator BC-03-M-02, was 2 years old in 2003 when he was captured near Kamloops, British Columbia. He was then released in Colorado near Creede as part of a species-reintroduction program on April 16 of that year.

Over the next four years, the Colorado Division of Wildlife kept track of the collared lynx. During that time, he fathered two sets of kittens — two babies in 2005 and four in 2006.

DOW officials believe both litters, which were born near Silverton, came from the same female.

Then, sometime after his last fixed position was recorded April 20, 2007, the male vamoosed.

No one knows what might have happened to the lynx over the next 33 months.

Then Bryan Anger, a trapper from Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, found BC-03-M-02 dead in his trap line on Jan. 28.

Yates said that Anger had worked carefully to avoid trapping any of the collared lynx that were part of a study she is pursuing in Alberta.

“When he (Anger) found a radio- collared lynx in his trap line, he was absolutely horrified,” Yates recalled. “When he saw the radio collar, he immediately called me. He said, ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve got one of your cats.’ “

Yates said she asked Anger to read the ear tag in the cat’s ear so she could identify it. But Anger became confused, saying there was no tag.

But then he told her there was a neck collar that read, “Please Return to Colorado Fish and Wildlife.”

“I started screaming,” Yates said. “I was incredibly excited. I knew right away this was one of the lynx that had been reintroduced in Colorado. I knew this lynx had traveled further than any other lynx had been known to travel.”

Yates immediately met with Anger. What she found was a cat that had been in very good shape, weighing a healthy 26 pounds despite his jaunt of 1,200 miles.

“I was thinking we are witnessing an historic event,” Yates said. “He got very close to where he was originally trapped for relocation. He got there without the help of a GPS.”

Anger, who legally traps lynx, wolves and weasels, said he found the lynx in his trap line after dark.

“I was surprised it made it here,” Anger, 52, said. “It had to cross major highways and cross major rivers. It had to endure a lot.”

Tanya Shenk of the Colorado Division of Wildlife said the vast majority of the 218 lynx introduced to Colorado from Canada, have stayed in Colorado or roamed to Wyoming and Montana, then returned to Colorado.

“It reflects well on our (Colorado’s) habitat,” Shenk said. “We have something really good to offer them.”

Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com