On a crisp day in mid-November, two wildlife biologists bushwhacked into the Takshanuk Mountains until they reached the edge of a canyon that offers close-up views of mountain goats.
Kevin White, a wildlife biologist and Haines local, checked the batteries and downloaded the photos from a camera strapped to a nearby tree.
“There’s a porcupine,” he said, scrolling through the images. “And a brown bear, it looks like.”
The camera is one of about 60 spread throughout the Chilkat Valley as part of a broader project focused on one carnivore in particular: lynx. Its aim is to gather more information about the wildcats’ presence and behavior in the region.
Leading the effort is longtime lynx researcher Liz Hofer, who splits her time between Haines and Haines Junction, in Canada. For decades, she has studied lynx and other wildcats in the neighboring Yukon, as well as in countries ranging from Switzerland and Norway to Mongolia and Yemen.
Now, with the help of a small army of local volunteers, she’s doing the same in the Chilkat Valley. The area is far from a hot spot for lynx, which are known for thriving in dry, boreal forests rather than coastal areas. But local trappers do harvest them in Haines, more in some years than others.
Particularly active trapping seasons in 2019 and 2020 piqued Hofer’s curiosity. She suggested launching a study that would examine the cats’ presence in the valley. She wanted to look at whether they could live here permanently – and whether some already do.
“It seems that the area could support a resident population. And so the question is, is that possible? Can they adapt?” Hofer said.
When hare populations crash, some lynx “just start walking”
When lynx do end up in Haines, it’s due to the population cycles of their favorite meal: the snowshoe hare. Hares are abundant in the Yukon’s Kluane area, just over the Canadian border from Haines. Their populations grow over the course of about a decade before crashing amid predation.
Lynx populations follow the same cycle, increasing in size alongside their prey. But when hare populations nosedive, lynx respond in one of three ways. They starve, they shift their hunting strategies, or “they just start walking,” Hofer said.
And some make it all the way to coastal areas, Haines among them.
That’s what happened in 2019 and 2020, when local trappers reported catching 25 and 26 lynx, respectively, according to state trapping records. Those were the highest numbers since 1992, when trappers harvested 27 lynx. Most other years, the number is closer to one or two.
The researchers haven’t detected a lynx on camera since 2022, after the last peak. As White sees it, that at least seems to suggest lynx have not set up here permanently.
“The jury's still out a little bit, because we haven't totally saturated all the places we could have cameras, and there's still certainly little pockets where there could be lynx that are resident,” White said. “But it seems like the initial indications are, there probably isn't.”
Ready for the next wave of lynx, whenever that comes
But there’s still plenty to learn – especially because hare populations in the Yukon are on the rise yet again. And Hofer expects the pattern will repeat, with lynx dispersing within the next two to three years.
“It may be very big because of the signs that say that the Kluane region, the Yukon region lynx, will be higher than usual,” she said.
This time, dozens of cameras will already be set up in key wildlife corridors to capture them in action. Photos could help the researchers get a better handle on how many are in the area.
“It will also be valuable to learn about, where are the hot spots? When they are in the area? And what are the habitat conditions like?” said White.
The project isn’t limited to cameras. The researchers have also asked the public to immediately alert them if they spot lynx – or lynx tracks. Between 2020 and 2025, the team received nearly 50 reports.
In one case, a Klukwan community member observed an adult female with one offspring in February 2023. The sighting indicates that successful lynx reproduction may be happening in the valley.
Hofer said she’s also in conversation with local trappers about either selling carcasses for research purposes or allowing the team to take tissue samples, which could provide insight into what exactly the lynx feed on while in the valley.
“So we have some more tricks up our sleeve,” Hofer said.
She is particularly curious about salmon and thinks the Chilkat River’s fall chum run could serve as an excellent food source.
Trappers have already provided the team with some hair samples to gauge lynx feeding behaviors. Those samples indicate that lynx were primarily eating “mammalian herbivores” and did not provide evidence of marine diets.
The area is also home to some snowshoe hairs, just not as many as in boreal forests further inland. Indeed, about halfway through the hike last month, a solid white hare darted across the mountainside. It was stark against the moss-covered forest floor.
“Good timing,” White said.
Hofer acknowledged that trapping data only provides so much information, and that they can only glean so much from photos. She said tagging and tracking lynx might be the best way to answer her most burning questions — but that’s beyond the scope of the scrappy local study.
Ideally, she said, the information they do collect might “maybe spur somebody else on who has more academic or agency-oriented research.”
