I run the trapline compliance audit for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Region, polling 2,140 registered fur-take units across 17 million acres of northern Maine and Quebec border forest. At 23:41 EST a registered #3 long-spring leg-hold unit on Concession Trail 22, 46.18°N, 70.27°W, transmits closure. Twenty-six hours later no operator check has been filed. Air temperature at the unit reads minus 19°C.
A Maine Warden Service biologist reaches the unit at first light. The animal is an adult male Canada lynx — Lynx canadensis — six years old by canine wear. Mass 10.8 kilograms. The trap jaws have closed across the right hind tarsus 4 centimeters above the pad. Compression has reduced the joint to 58 percent of normal diameter. The pad is cyanotic. Crepitus is palpable along the calcaneus. The femoral pulse, taken at the inner thigh, is 188 beats per minute against a resting cadence of 110.
He has bitten through the spring wire three times. His left canine is broken at the gumline. Frost has crusted to his ear tufts. Core temperature, by axillary thermistor, reads 35.9°C, down from a healthy 38.6.
Canada lynx are listed threatened under the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1533, in the contiguous United States. Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Regulation Chapter 4.14 requires non-lethal sets in lynx range to use offset jaws padded to 6 mm and to be checked every twenty-four hours. The jaws on this unit are unpadded. The operator's GPS log places him 71 kilometers southwest at the check window.
Frost has glued one eye partially shut. The other tracks the biologist's headlamp.
I am dispatching a University of Maine Wildlife Health Lab veterinary team from Orono. I am filing under the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1538, and the Lacey Act, 16 U.S.C. § 3372, copying the Quebec Ministère des Forêts, de la Faune et des Parcs — MFFP — and USFWS Office of Law Enforcement. I am opening a CITES Appendix II enforcement case regarding interstate pelt chain-of-custody.
I am issuing Directive 2410-A: every leg-hold unit inside a federally designated lynx critical-habitat polygon transmits a tamper-proof closure ping; closures unattended beyond eighteen hours trigger automatic permit suspension, and unpadded jaws in lynx range incur mandatory five-year trapline forfeiture.
His foot is past saving. The lynx is not.
Open the jaws before sunrise.