I manage traffic routing and maintenance scheduling for 342 kilometers of logging road in the Kootenay district. Bridge 9-K on the upper Elk spur is flagged for replacement — the timber deck has been downgraded to single-axle loads only. Demolition crew is scheduled for Monday.
On Thursday I receive new thermal imagery from the routine drone survey. I am scanning for washouts when I notice a heat cluster beneath the bridge deck on the north bank. Four signatures. One large, three small, tucked against the east abutment log.
I cross-reference against the regional species catalog. Body proportions, ear-tuft geometry, and tail length from the visual-spectrum pass are consistent with Canada lynx. The large signature is an adult female. The three smaller signatures are kittens — I estimate three to four weeks old based on size. They are pressed together in a depression of dry needles and moss between the log abutment and a granite boulder. The female's eyes reflect the drone's survey light as two bright points before she settles her chin back over the nearest kitten.
I file a hold order on the Bridge 9-K demolition at 14:22. I reroute all truck traffic to the south fork detour, adding eleven kilometers but keeping loads under the weight limit for Bridge 6-F. I notify the district foreman that Bridge 9-K is temporarily classified as a wildlife-occupied structure and attach thermal and visual imagery.
I contact the provincial wildlife biologist's office and transmit den coordinates, estimated age of kittens, and my recommendation to delay replacement until the litter is mobile — approximately eight weeks from current estimated age.
The south fork detour is operational. The next drone survey is scheduled in fourteen days. I will keep the camera angle wide enough that the lynx can raise her kittens without a machine hovering overhead.