Wild North rescues orphaned lynx cub near Drayton Valley
An orphaned lynx is getting some help surviving, thanks to an Alberta wildlife rehabilitation organization.
Last week, the Wild North Alberta wildlife rescue received a call from Fish and Wildlife that they had recovered a "unique animal."
"Some workers on a job site in Drayton Valley discovered a deceased lynx that had been hit by a vehicle on the road," explained Dale Gienow, the rescue's executive director.
The Fish and Wildlife officers found that two young kittens were lingering around their mother. One of the youngsters was successfully captured and brought to Wild North.
Typically, a young lynx stays with their mother until around 10 months old, at which point it would start to live by itself. This cub is around seven to eight months.
Gienow says efforts to locate the second kitten continue.
"[At that point] the survival rate for these guys would be pretty poor without mom, so we're very, very hopeful that they manage to capture the second sibling
In the meantime, Wild North's newest guest has been named Hunter, after the Edmonton Oilers mascot. She was slightly underweight and dehydrated, Gienow said, but is overall in "reasonable health."
"It'll never hear its name, but that's what we're calling it," Gienow added. "It's really important for us to maintain a healthy relationship with wild animals and is to say that we don't want them to get accustomed to us or over-socialized.
Hunter the lynx plays in his enclosure at the Wild North (Supplied).
"It's especially important when you're dealing with large carnivores, like a lynx," he said. "We have to be very careful that the animal doesn't see us, it doesn't hear us. We do our best to stay so it can't smell us."
Hunter will stay with the wildlife organization until the spring when it will be released back in the Drayton Valley area.
In 33 years of operation, Wild North has not taken care of a lynx, Gienow said.
"These guys are very reclusive," he added. "We don't come across them very often and they're top of the food chain, so not a lot of them compared to prey species that we might get a lot of."
"To put this in perspective, how rare this is, we receive about 3,500 patients every year."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
CRA no longer requiring 'bare trust' reporting in 2023 tax return
The Canada Revenue Agency announced Thursday it will not require 'bare trust' reporting from Canadians that it introduced for the 2024 tax season, just four days before the April 2 deadline.
NEW More unauthorized products for skin, sexual enhancement, recalled: Here are the recalls of this week
Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency recalled various items this week, including torches, beef biltong and unauthorized products related to skin care and sexual enhancement.
Where is the worst place for allergy sufferers in Canada?
The spring allergy season has started early in many parts of Canada, with high levels of pollen in some cities already. Experts weigh in on which areas have it worse so far this season.
Do these exercises for core strength if you can't stomach doing planks
Planks are one of the most effective exercises for strengthening your midsection, as they target all of your major core muscles: the transverse abdominis, rectus abdominis, external obliques and internal obliques. Yet despite the popularity of various 10-minute plank challenges, planking is actually one of the most dreaded core exercises, according to many fitness experts.
Polar ice is melting and changing Earth's rotation. It's messing with time itself
One day in the next couple of years, everyone in the world will lose a second of their time. Exactly when that will happen is being influenced by humans, according to a new study, as melting polar ice alters the Earth’s rotation and changes time itself.
Grandparent scam: London, Ont., senior beats fraudsters not once, but twice
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
Sunshine list: These were the Ontario public sector's highest earners in 2023
Ontario released its annual sunshine list Thursday afternoon, noting that the largest year-over-year increases were in hospitals, municipalities, and post-secondary sectors.
NEW 'Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire': A crowd pleaser that turns it up to 11
Hot on the heels of last year's 'Godzilla Minus One' comes 'Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,' the first ever Academy Award winner in the giant reptile's decades-long film career.
Deaths of 4 people on Sask. farm confirmed as murder-suicide
The deaths of four people on a farm near the Saskatchewan village of Neudorf have been confirmed a murder-suicide.