RABBITS AND LYNXES IN THE NORTH-WEST
There are no Rabbits in the north-west. This statement, far from
final, is practically true to-day, but I saw plenty of Lynxes, and
one cannot write of ducks without mentioning water.
All wild animals fluctuate greatly in their population, none
more so than the Snowshoe or white-rabbit of the north-west. This
is Rabbit history as far back as known: They are spread over some
great area; conditions are favourable; some unknown influence endows
the females with unusual fecundity; they bear not one, but two or
three broods in a season, and these number not 2 or 3, but 8 or 10
each brood. The species increases far beyond the powers of predaceous
birds or beasts to check, and the Rabbits after 7 or 8 years of
this are multiplied into untold millions. On such occasions every
little thicket has a Rabbit in it; they jump out at every 8 or 10
feet; they number not less than 100 to the acre on desirable ground,
which means over 6,000 to the square mile, and a region as large as
Alberta would contain not less than 100,000,000 fat white bunnies.
At this time one man can readily kill 100 or 200 Rabbits in a day,
and every bird and beast of prey is slaughtering Rabbits without
restraint. Still they increase. Finally, they are so extraordinarily
superabundant that they threaten their own food supply as well as
poison all the ground. A new influence appears on the scene; it is
commonly called the plague, though it is not one disease but many
run epidemic riot, and, in a few weeks usually, the Rabbits are
wiped out.
This is an outline of the established routine in Rabbit vital
statistics. It, of course, varies greatly in every detail, including
time and extent of territory involved, and when the destruction is
complete it is an awful thing for the carnivores that have lived
on the bunny millions and multiplied in ratio with their abundance.
Of all the northern creatures none are more dependent on the Rabbits
than is the Canada Lynx. It lives on Rabbits, follows the Rabbits,
thinks Rabbits, tastes like Rabbits, increases with them, and on
their failure dies of starvation in the unrabbited woods.
It must have been a Hibernian familiar with the north that said:
"A Lynx is nothing but an animated Rabbit anyway."
The Rabbits of the Mackenzie River Valley reached their flood
height in the winter of 1903-4. That season, it seems, they actually
reached billions.
Late the same winter the plague appeared, but did not take them at
one final swoop. Next winter they were still numerous, but in 1907
there seemed not one Rabbit left alive in the country. All that
summer we sought for them and inquired for them. We saw signs of
millions in the season gone by; everywhere were acres of saplings
barked at the snow-line; the floor of the woods, in all parts visited,
was pebbled over with pellets; but we saw not one Woodrabbit and
heard only a vague report of 3 that an Indian claimed he had seen
in a remote part of the region late in the fall.
Then, since the Lynx is the logical apex of a pyramid of Rabbits,
it naturally goes down when the Rabbits are removed.
These bobtailed cats are actually starving and ready to enter
any kind of a trap or snare that carries a bait. The slaughter of
Lynxes in its relation to the Rabbit supply is shown by the H. B.
Company fur returns as follows:
In 1900, number of skins taken 4,473
" 1901 " 5,781
" 1902 " 9,117
" 1903 " 19,267
" 1904 " 36,116
" 1905 " 58,850
" 1906 " 61,388
" 1907 " 36,201
" 1908 " 9,664
Remembering, then, that the last of the Rabbits were wiped out in
the winter of 1906-7, it will be understood that there were thousands
of starving Lynxes roaming about the country. The number that we
saw, and their conditions, all helped to emphasise the dire story
of plague and famine.
Some of my notes are as follows:
May 18th, Athabaska River, on roof of a trapper's hut found the
bodies of 30 Lynxes.
May 19th, young Lynx shot to-day, female, very thin, weighed only
12 1/2 lbs., should have weighed 25. In its stomach nothing but
the tail of a white-footed mouse. Liver somewhat diseased. In its
bowels at least one tapeworm.
June 3d, a young male Lynx shot to-day by one of the police boys,
as previously recorded. Starving; it weighed only 15 lbs.
June 6th, adult female Lynx killed, weighed 15 lbs.; stomach contained
a Redsquirrel, a Chipmunk, and a Bog-lemming. (Synaptomys borealis.)
June 18th, young male Lynx, weight 13 lbs., shot by Preble on Smith
Landing; had in its stomach a Chipmunk (borealis) and 4 small young
of the same, apparently a week old; also a score of pinworms. How
did it get the Chipmunk family without digging them out?
June 26th, on Salt Mt. found the dried-up body of a Lynx firmly
held in a Bear trap.
June 29th, one of the Jarvis bear-cub skins was destroyed by the
dogs, except a dried-up paw, which he threw out yesterday. This
morning one of the men shot a starving Lynx in camp. Its stomach
contained nothing but the bear paw thrown out last night.
These are a few of my observations; they reflect the general
condition--all were starving. Not one of them had any Rabbit in its
stomach; not one had a bellyful; none of the females were bearing
young this year.
To embellish these severe and skeletal notes, I add some incidents
supplied by various hunters of the north.
Let us remember that the Lynx is a huge cat weighing 25 to 35 or
even 40 lbs., that it is an ordinary cat multiplied by some 4 or
5 diameters, and we shall have a good foundation for comprehension.
Murdo McKay has often seen 2 or 3 Lynxes together in March, the
mating season. They fight, and caterwaul like a lot of tomcats.
The uncatlike readiness of the Lynx to take to water is well known;
that it is not wholly at home there is shown by the fact that if
one awaits a Lynx at the landing he is making for, he will not turn
aside in the least, but come right on to land, fight, and usually
perish.
The ancient feud between cat and dog is not forgotten in the north,
for the Lynx is the deadly foe of the Fox and habitually kills it
when there is soft snow and scarcity of easier prey. Its broad feet
are snowshoes enabling it to trot over the surface on Reynard's
trail. The latter easily runs away at first, but sinking deeply
at each bound, his great speed is done in 15 or 6 miles; the Lynx
keeps on the same steady trot and finally claims its victim.
John Bellecourt related that in the January of 1907, at a place 40
miles south of Smith Landing, he saw in the snow where a Lynx bad
run down and devoured a Fox.
A contribution by T. Anderson runs thus:
In late March, 1907, an Indian named Amil killed a Caribou near
Fort Rae. During his absence a Lynx came along and gorged itself
with the meat, then lay down alongside to sleep. A Silver Fox came
next; but the Lynx sprang on him and killed him. When Amil came
back he found the Fox and got a large sum for the skin; one shoulder
was torn. He did not see the Lynx but saw the tracks.
The same old-timer is authority for a case in which the tables were
turned.
A Desert Indian on the headwaters of the Gatineau went out in the
early spring looking for Beaver. At a well-known pond he saw a
Lynx crouching on a log, watching the Beaver hole in the ice. The
Indian waited. At length a Beaver came up cautiously and crawled
out to a near bunch of willows; the Lynx sprang, but the Beaver
was well under way and dived into the hole with the Lynx hanging
to him. After a time the Indian took a crotched pole and fished
about under the ice; at last he found something soft and got it
out; it was the Lynx drowned.
Belalise ascribes another notable achievement to this animal.
One winter when hunting Caribou near Fond du Lac with an Indian
named Tenahoo (human tooth), they saw a Lynx sneaking along after
some Caribou; they saw it coming but had not sense enough to run
away. It sprang on the neck of a young buck; the buck bounded away
with the Lynx riding, but soon fell dead. The hunters came up;
the Lynx ran off. There was little blood and no large wound on the
buck; probably its neck was broken. The Indian said the Lynx always
kills with its paw, and commonly kills Deer. David MacPherson
corroborates this and maintains that on occasion it will even kill
Moose.
In southern settlements, where the Lynx is little known, it is
painted as a fearsome beast of limitless ferocity, strength, and
activity. In the north, where it abounds and furnishes staple furs
and meat, it is held in no such awe. It is never known to attack
man. It often follows his trail out of curiosity, and often the
trapper who is so followed gets the Lynx by waiting in ambush; then
it is easily killed with a charge of duck-shot. When caught in a
snare a very small club is used to "add it to the list." It seems
tremendously active among logs and brush piles, but on the level
ground its speed is poor, and a good runner can overtake one in a
few hundred yards.
David MacPherson says that last summer he ran down a Lynx on a
prairie of Willow River (Mackenzie), near Providence. It had some
90 yards start; he ran it down in about a mile, then it turned to
fight and he shot it.
Other instances have been recorded, and finally, as noted later,
I was eye-witness of one of these exploits. Since the creature can
be run down on hard ground, it is not surprising to learn that men
on snow-shoes commonly pursue it successfully. As long as it trots
it is safe, but when it gets alarmed and bounds it sinks and becomes
exhausted. It runs in a circle of about a mile, and at last takes
to a tree where it is easily killed. At least one-third are taken
in this way; it requires half an hour to an hour, there must be
soft snow, and the Lynx must be scared so he leaps; then he sinks;
if not scared he glides along on his hairy snow-shoes, refuses
to tree, and escapes in thick woods, where the men cannot follow
quickly.