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
Canada's most wanted fugitive arrested in P.E.I. in connection with Toronto homicide
A suspect in a fatal shooting in Toronto’s east end last summer has been arrested in Charlottetown, just one week after he topped a list of Canada’s most wanted fugitives.
BREAKING Federal employees will be required to spend 3 days a week in the office
Starting in September, public servants in the core public administration will be required to work in the office a minimum of three days a week. The Treasury Board Secretariat says executives will need to be in the office four days per week.
Concerns about plexiglass prompt inspections at some Loblaws locations in Ottawa
Inspections are underway at more than one Loblaws location in Ottawa after complaints were filed about tall plexiglass barriers.
OPP officer said 'someone's going to get hurt' before wrong-way Hwy. 401 crash
As multiple Durham police cruisers were chasing a robbery suspect on the wrong side of Highway 401 Monday night, an Ontario Provincial Police officer shared his concerns, telling a dispatcher, "Someone's going to get hurt."
Poilievre unrepentant over calling Trudeau 'wacko' as his MPs say Speaker should resign
An unrepentant Pierre Poilievre returned to the House of Commons on Wednesday to pepper the prime minister about his drug decriminalization policies after being booted the day prior for refusing to take back calling Justin Trudeau 'wacko' over his approach to the issue.
Five human skeletons, missing hands and feet, found outside house of Nazi leader Hermann Göring
Archeologists have unearthed the skeletons of five people, missing their hands and feet, at a former Nazi military base in Poland.
Toddler of Phoenix first responder dies after bounce house goes airborne
A two-year-old child died after a strong gust of wind sent the bounce house he was in airborne and into a neighbouring lot in central Arizona, the Pinal County Sheriff's Office said.
Plane overshoots runway at airport in St. John's, N.L., no injuries reported
Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada are headed to St. John's, N.L., after a plane overshot a runway at the city's airport this afternoon.
A teen was found buried in a basement in New York. An engraved ring helped police learn her identity two decades later
For more than two decades, the unknown victim was nicknamed "Midtown Jane Doe" because she was found in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of New York City. But this week, investigators finally revealed her identity.