The Fish and Wildlife Service finalized a rule on July 16 that shrinks the map of protected habitat for the Canada lynx, and the biggest single cut erases one of the animal's most important ranges: the Greater Yellowstone Area [1][3]. The final designation covers 14,030 square miles across Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Washington - about 5,082 square miles, or 27 percent, less than the government's own November 2024 proposal [1][2].
That proposal, issued a year and a half earlier, would have designated 19,112 square miles across six states, adding New Mexico and Wyoming [2]. The final rule drops both: all of the Greater Yellowstone Area in Wyoming and part of Montana, and all of the proposed New Mexico habitat, are gone, along with reductions in Colorado and elsewhere [1]. Existing habitat in Maine and Minnesota is unchanged.
Data
| Nov 2024 proposal | 19,112 sq mi of critical habitat |
|---|---|
| July 2026 final rule | 14,030 sq mi of critical habitat |
Critical habitat is the legal designation that requires federal agencies to consult before actions that might harm a listed species' recovery, so removing an area removes that check. The Canada lynx has been listed as threatened since 2000, and the rule resolves a court settlement over the 2014 designation by redrawing it smaller [1]. Ben Greuel of the Sierra Club called eliminating all Wyoming lynx habitat 'startling, and a drastic departure' from the 2024 proposal [3].
The record is a subtraction, entered in the Federal Register and effective August 17: a threatened cat's protected range cut by more than a quarter from what the same agency proposed eighteen months ago, with Greater Yellowstone - some of the wildest habitat in the Lower 48 - taken off the map [1]. The lynx stays listed; the ground it is entitled to protection on gets smaller.
