Meet the Animal Park's Eurasian Lynxes

NATIVE RANGE

The Eurasian lynx lives in Northern Europe through Russia and into mountainous regions of the Middle East, Central Asia, and Europe. They usually live in forested areas, but occupy more open, thinly wooded areas in Central Asia.

DIET

They eat many different kinds of deer (up to 250 pounds) as their primary diet, and also eat foxes, rabbits, wild pigs, large rodents including beavers, and birds.

BEHAVIOR

Eurasian lynx are solitary except for mothers with kittens. Mainly nocturnal or crepuscular, the lynx spends the daytime sleeping in places that offer concealment. They avoid humans and are rarely seen. Lynx stalk their prey from the cover of thick vegetation, using stealth to get close before pouncing and delivering a bite to the neck or biting down on the snout until the prey suffocates. They take their kill to thick cover to eat in privacy. Anything that is not eaten right away is cached for later.

FASCINATING FACTS

• Over winter, a lynx’s large paws are covered in long, dense hair and hit the ground with a toe-spreading motion that makes them function as natural snowshoes. This gives them an advantage over their hooved prey.
• The Eurasian lynx is the largest lynx, weighing up to 64 pounds, stretching up to 43 inches long in the body, and standing up to 30 inches at the shoulder. In Europe, they are the third-largest predator after the brown bear and the wolf.
• Worldwide, there are an estimated 45,000–50,000 Eurasian lynx in the wild.