Lynx reintroduction does more harm than good There I was, face to face with the stump-tailed lynx. He looked at me and licked his chops with joy. The beast seemed to be thinking "Lunch" on that cold, gray December day, but I had no fear of being attacked. The reason for this was the fact that it was a domestic lynx that happened to be on the other side of a sturdy metal cage, so there was no chance of the lynx getting me. the road along the continental divide flows into Canada. Now, after being removed from Colorado for 25 years, the animal has been reintroduced to the lower tip of the lynx's historic habitat, the San Juan (Rogers) Mountains. So far, of the 33 lynx tracked, all roam across 170 square miles of southwestern Colorado stretching from the New Mexico border to the I-70 corridor and from Monarch Pass to Taylor Mesa (Shenk). In an effort to find out how these animals, which look like bobcats with black ear tufts and huge paws, behave in the wild, scientists are monitoring them with radio collars and airplanes (Lloyd). Now, just a couple of years later, the Colorado Division of Wildlife plans to release more than 180 more lynx into the Colorado wilds within the next five years. However, of the nearly 100 Canadian lynxes released so far, about half have died and none have reproduced. With the kind of results the trial has achieved so far, agencies involved in the reintroduction process should stop reintroducing lynx into Colorado. Instead, they should try to find a different way to achieve results that save the species. Government agencies involved in the reintroduction of the lynx argue that this should be done to save an endangered species. Three strong points emerge in this argument for trying to save the lynx: every animal should have the chance to exist, many people feel happy when they see the animals they share the earth with, and all living things are part of a complex ecosystem ( "Wildlife Commission..."). However, they aren't sure how to reintroduce the lynx so they don't all die.