Canada lynx in Montana, USA

© Alan and Sandy Carey/Minden Picture

The missing lynx

If you're lucky, you may catch a glimpse of this wily wildcat species in the northern extremities of Canada and the US state of Alaska. But a bit further south in Montana, USA, where our homepage photograph was taken, a Canada lynx encounter like this is rare. While once they roamed across many of the northern US states, for two decades they've been listed as threatened in all except Alaska.

This protective status under the US Endangered Species Act, enacted on this day in 1973, aims to preserve lynx and other animal populations in the face of climate change, habitat loss and other threats. One success story: There's now a stable lynx population far south of here in the Colorado Rockies, where the animals were reintroduced in 1999, having been virtually wiped out in the region.