Quit lynching lynx, judge orders

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1997:

WASHINGTON D.C.––U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler on March 27 ordered
the Fish and Widlife Service to reconsider a 1994 decision against listing the Canadian lynx
as an endangered species.
“The Fish and Wildlife Service has consistently ignored the analysis of its expert
biologists,” Kessler wrote. The decision against listing, she continued, depended upon
“glaringly faulty premises,” including the contention that the lynx still occupies much of its
historical range, despite “overwhlming evidence that the lynx has been entirely eliminated
from 17 states,” leaving some only in Maine, Montana, Idaho, and Washington.
Sought by the Biodiversity Legal Foundation, Defenders of Wildlife, and 11
other groups, the proposed listing of the lynx was opposed by hunters and trappers––in part
because a listing would refute their longtime assertion that no species has become endangered.

in recent years because of regulated hunting and trapping.
“Hunting and trapping pressure on the lynx has been historically low,” the
USFWS obligingly opined, claiming “there is little evidence that these activities pose a
threat to the continued existence of this species in the wild.”
But the evidence from USFWS biologists themselves shows “human-induced
morality is the most important mortality factor,” Kessler concluded.