Six kittens were born to relocated Canada lynx in Washington State's Kettle Range last summer. A year later, trail cameras confirmed what everyone was hoping: several of those kittens survived their first full winter — the first wild lynx kittens born in the Kettle Range since the early 1980s.

  • 46 lynx relocated from British Columbia to northeastern Washington between fall 2021 and spring 2026
  • 2 litters of kittens confirmed in the Kettle Range in summer 2025
  • 1 relocated male traveled more than 400 miles west to reach the North Cascades
  • 40–100 lynx in Washington's established Cascade Range population — now joined by an emerging Kettle Range cohort

What the Trail Cameras Found

Biologists from the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation trekked into the high-elevation Kettle Range and confirmed two separate dens with live kittens — signs of a third den showed a mother had already moved her young. Twelve months later, the trail cameras answered the question that mattered most: did those kittens make it through winter?

They did.

"Once they reproduce, it's a really positive sign. They're not going to choose an area they don't feel comfortable in, or where they can't support themselves and a litter of kittens." — Dennis Moore, Colville Tribes Fish and Wildlife Department

The Tribe's announcement was joyful: "Wápupxn has returned!" — wápupxn being the Colville people's name for Canada lynx, translated roughly as "hair in its feet," a reference to the enormous snowshoe-like paws that give lynx their edge in deep snow.

How the Tribe Brought Back a Lost Predator

Lynx were essentially trapped out of the Kettle Range by the early 1980s. The Colville Tribes designed a meticulous five-year augmentation project. Each winter, biologists worked with Canadian trappers to capture lynx in British Columbia, fit them with radio collars, and release them into the Kettle Range on the Colville Indian Reservation and the Colville National Forest.

Not every cat stayed put. Some older males returned immediately to established territories in Canada. But one male made a stunning journey — more than 400 miles across the Okanogan River and into the North Cascades, where Washington's main lynx population lives. That journey confirmed that landscape connectivity between the Kettle Range and the Cascades is real and usable by lynx on the move.

The connectivity matters enormously. Scientists from Conservation Northwest describe the Kettle Range population as a "habitat steppingstone" linking northeastern Washington to populations in the Northern Rockies. When wildfires destroy one area of habitat, lynx from connected ranges can recolonize as the forest recovers over decades.

The Threats That Remain

Washington's lynx face serious pressure. Shrinking snowpack removes their competitive advantage over bobcats and coyotes, which can now access high-elevation territories that were once impassable in winter. Mega-wildfires have been devastating — one study estimated that fires between 2000 and 2020 reduced Cascade Range lynx carrying capacity by roughly 70%.

A 2026 WDFW status review maintained the species' endangered listing in Washington, projecting that suitable climatic conditions for lynx may disappear from the state entirely by mid-century. WDFW biologist Jeff Lewis noted that the animals are "very vulnerable" to the pace of change.

But the Kettle Range success changes the calculus. A distributed population across multiple mountain ranges gives the species greater resilience — and gives wildlife managers more options for the decades ahead.

The relocation phase is now complete. The monitoring continues. And wápupxn, it turns out, is raising families in a range where it had been absent for more than 40 years.