Bringing Wápupxn Home

The Colville Tribes’ Wildlife department is working hard to bring Wápupxn (Canada lynx) back to the Kettle Mountain Range where it historically roamed.

Project details:

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Conservation Northwest, the Province of British Columbia, Okanogan Region Trappers and a team of dedicated individuals are implementing a five-year project to restore wápupxn, one of our brothers, back to their ancestral lands.  Our high mountain ecosystems have been out of balance since the disappearance of wápupxn in the 1980’s when they vanished from the landscape.  

Our goal is to implement a Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) population augmentation to restore wápupxn to the Kettle Range in northeast Washington. This project will source wápupxn from southern British Columbia to live-trap and release on the Colville Reservation. Extensive work has identified large tracts of suitable habitat in the Kettle Range and historic and ongoing wápupxn presence validate that a self-sustaining population can successfully be established here.  

Our team, led by tribal biologists, will live trap a minimum of 10 wápupxn every year for 5 years.  Trapped lynx will be fit with radio collars, and then transported across the border to be released on the Colville Reservation.  Once lynx are released an extensive monitoring effort will be initiated to record habitat use, daily and seasonal movement, home range establishment, breeding success and mortality.  

We anticipate increases in both distribution and occurrence of wápupxn from the Cascades to the Rockies and British Columbia.   The Colville Tribes are dedicated to the long-term monitoring and protection of this culturally important species.  

The Colville Tribes consider it a priority to contribute to the recovery and management of threatened and endangered and other priority species (Federal, State and Tribal) by conducting feasibility studies and re-establishing wildlife populations throughout their historic native range on the Reservation, North Half and Aboriginal Territories.

News and Updates

Fall 2025

The team is gearing up for the 5th and final season of trapping up in Canada; the permits are all in place and we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of cooler weather that will trigger our northern departure.  The hope is to quickly capture 10 lynx with at least half but hopefully more like 70% of them being female.  

Summer 2025

The success of a project like this is always hard to pin point.  Wildlife reproduce, disperse, die and set up home ranges all time but unless we have collars on them we can’t pinpoint all the details all the time.  With the lynx collars lasting just under 2 years its difficult to confirm when and if lynx set up home ranges or reproduce unless they have an active collar.  Setting trail cameras and collecting scat will provide biologists with information about home range establishment but there is always so much more to learn.  BUT one thing we just established is that there is connectivity between the Kettles and the Cascades.  This summer a male collared lynx traveled from the Kettle Range across the Okanogan Valley and into the wilderness of the Cascades!

Summer 2025

After many miles and hours in the field we are overjoyed to share the news that 3 females have denned this year! Wápupxn has returned!  The first den was confirmed with 2 lynx kittens; the first live kittens the team has seen!  The second den was confirmed with 4 kittens and the 3rd den was confirmed but the mother moved her kittens before the team was able to confirm the number of kittens. These kittens are the first ones know to be born in the Kettles since the late 1970s early 1980s. This is a momentous milestone and the lynx team couldn’t be prouder. Using location data collected from their GPS collars we are closely tracking each females’ movements and so far they are all showing behaviors that we would expect if they were still taking care of kittens.  This is a huge win for Washington lynx!

Spring 2025

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation would like to share the exciting news that they have confirmed the presence of wápupxn (lynx) kittens in the Kettle Range!  This momentous news is the culmination of years of work by a dedicated group of biologists committed to returning wápupxn to this area.  Now for the first time in over 40 years, live lynx kittens have been confirmed in the Kettle Range.  Welcome home wápupxn!

Winter 2024

We have completed the 4th year of the project and have released 36 lynx so far.   We have been busy monitoring each individual lynx since the first male and female were release on the Reservation on November 2, 2021.  The data that we are collecting is already assisting biologist in the review of large and small scale land management projects on and off the Reservation.  The data continues to expand our knowledge of lynx and their use of the landscape overall.  Core habitat areas are beginning to emerge and travel corridors between suitable habitat are creating a picture of how lynx will utilize the Kettle Range to meet their life requirements.  

As expected a number of lynx have traveled back up to Canada and with each of these incredible treks we are learning where these elusive animals are crossing the border.  The majority of the lynx that have traveled back to Canada are larger males that are thought to have well established home ranges there.  Two of the females that traveled back to Canada later returned back down to the North Half and our hope is that they will establish new home ranges down here.

Members of the lynx team process captured lynx. The team closely monitors the lynx as they collect biological samples, apply ear tags, and fit them with GPS collars. The collars will drop off after about 2 years of providing location data every 13 hours. Once recovered lynx will be transported to the Reservation for release.

Members of the lynx team inspect traps, prepare meat, track fresh lynx sign and prepare lynx for transport and release.