A lynx found dead Sunday at Purgatory Resort has been identified as an 11½-year-old male born in Telluride and may not be the same lynx who became an internet sensation by strolling casually across a Colorado ski slope, wildlife officials said Wednesday.
The Durango Herald reports that although wildlife officials previously said the dead lynx was a 2- to 3-year-old female that was not tagged, that’s not the case.
But during a Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission meeting Wednesday, Patt Dorsey, southwest wildlife officer, said the lynx that Purgatory ski patrol members recovered had a tag and was known to wildlife officials. Dorsey said the lynx was born in 2005 in Telluride and likely had many, many offspring, the Herald reports. The average lifespan for a lynx is up to 15 years.
Earlier this week, the Denver Post reported that the animal would undergo a necropsy — the wildlife version of an autopsy —to determine the cause of death. Colorado Parks and Wildlife announced in a news release Monday that a preliminary examination revealed the lynx was emaciated.
The necropsy will check for parasites, examine stomach contents and look for injuries and signs of organ damage to determine what killed the lynx. The results could take weeks.
Lynx once roamed widely in Colorado but were extinct in the state by the 1970s. In 1999, state wildlife officials began reintroducing the cat, which favors high-elevation areas with thick forests and deep snow. CPW estimates there are now as many as 250 lynx in Colorado, many of them concentrated in the San Juan mountains of southwest Colorado.
The sighting at Purgatory, which is near Durango, came days after a woman driving over Molas Pass spotted a mother lynx and her kitten.
