About a month ago I walked out onto the deck in the early morning to a scene of utter carnage. Rheagal, our 45 lbs. Black Spanish turkey tom, was missing from his usual sleeping perch on the deck rail and there were feathers everywhere. The other turkeys all slept either in the chicken coop, or up high on the balcony, but Rheagal was so massive that he could not fly up very high. Of course, I did not think he would be in any danger of any predator on our deck and with his size. Clearly I had been wrong. My heart immediately sank. There is always a feeling of deep guilt when you lose livestock to a predator. So much time, money and emotional investment goes into raising animals that it’s a really big blow when things go wrong. I felt stupid for thinking he would be safe on the deck, but also really upset that there was something out there in the deep of winter that was ballsy enough to basically walk right up to my front door.
Rheagal and I had our differences. Last spring his hormones took over and he started seeing me as a threat. He would attack relentlessly. This was enough to have him designated for Thanksgiving dinner, but the children begged and pleaded for his life as they were really quite keen on him. And since his ire was directed only to me, I relented and resorted to “other ways” of finding a truce with the badass turkey tom, which may have involved manhandling and humiliating him…
But when I saw those feathers, I was absolutely gutted and I started following the trail of mayhem right away, just in case he had survived this attack. I racked my brain trying to think of what could have done this. The bears are asleep, the owls and eagles aren’t big enough to have tackled him… then I came upon the print in the snow.
The culprit was undoubtedly a Lynx canadensis.
I was surprised though, because lynx are usually very shy. In all my years in Alaska, I have only ever seen one of them out and about. This winter though, there is a dip in the population of snowshoe hares according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and it has caused the lynx to be more bold than usual. They are starving, going after pets and livestock and even resorting to cannibalism.
The Alaska Department of Fish Game office in Fairbanks has received more calls than normal about lynx sightings and nuisance calls involving lynx and livestock/pets this winter. Many of these calls are simply about people encountering lynx that do not seem to be “afraid” of people. This is not unusual behavior for these curious cats, it’s just that most people never encounter them to witness it firsthand. There have also been reports of lynx killing chickens, cats, and dogs this winter. Lynx specialize in eating snowshoe hares, but will kill and eat other animals when hares are not available. Make sure you secure your livestock and pets. What is going on? The snowshoe hare population has been high for the past few years, but this year their numbers have plummeted in much of the Interior. The lynx populations follow the hare populations with a year or two lag. So now we have a very large lynx population with their main prey species depleted. They are hungry and they are on the move searching for food. That is one of the reasons why there are so many lynx sightings this year. Enjoy the sightings while they are here. The lynx numbers are sure to plummet this winter. Many of the animals are going to starve and small lynx will get eaten by larger lynx. Trappers are reporting that there are no young-of-the-year being caught this winter, supporting the idea that the population is already declining. Following a decline in the number of lynx, the snowshoe hare population will rebuild and the lynx population will follow. This cycle is normal and repeats itself approximately every 10 years.
AK Fish and Game FB post.
Now the game was afoot to find Rheagal’s body, because lynx cache their large catches. I did not want this lynx using my house as a pantry. I did not want him to come back for his meal. I tracked the lynx all the way down to the frozen creek, but decided I am entirely too fat to try and cross that ice. On my way back to the house, on the edge of the property, I found Rheagal’s headless body buried in the snow. He was so heavy, I needed the cargo sled to drag him back to the house, where the other turkeys had what I can only describe as a funeral for him. In the video you can even see one of them pick a piece of straw from his feathers.
I was initially going to burn the body, but ended up giving it to my neighbor who will try to trap the lynx (the neighbor lost a duck to the same cat). Before you protest about this, please consider that a starving predator, large and ballsy enough to kill a 45 lbs. animal, is also large and ballsy enough to kill a 35 lbs. preschooler and my neighbor has a trapping permit. Even after all these years out here in the forest, I learn something new all the time. This was a costly lesson though.
