Feet; they number not less than 100 to the acre on desirable ground,
which means over 6,000 to the square mile, and a region as large as
Alberta would contain not less than 100,000,000 fat white bunnies.
At this time one man can readily kill 100 or 200 Rabbits in a day,
and every bird and beast of prey is slaughtering Rabbits without
restraint. Still they increase. Finally, they are so extraordinarily
superabundant that they threaten their own food supply as well as
poison all the ground. A new influence appears on the scene; it is
commonly called the plague, though it is not one disease but many
run epidemic riot, and, in a few weeks usually, the Rabbits are
wiped out.
This is an outline of the established routine in Rabbit vital
statistics. It, of course, varies greatly in every detail, including
time and extent of territory involved, and when the destruction is
complete it is an awful thing for the carnivores that have lived
on the bunny millions and multiplied in ratio with their abundance.
Of all the northern creatures none are more dependent on the Rabbits
than is the Canada Lynx. It lives on Rabbits, follows the Rabbits,
thinks Rabbits, tastes like Rabbits, increases with them, and on
their failure dies of starvation in the unrabbited woods.
It must have been a Hibernian familiar with the north that said:
"A Lynx is nothing but an animated Rabbit anyway."
The Rabbits of the Mackenzie River Valley reached their flood
height in the winter of 1903-4. That season, it seems, they actually
reached billions.
Late the same winter the plague appeared, but did not take them at
one final swoop. Next winter they were still numerous, but in 1907
there seemed not one Rabbit left alive in the country. All that
summer we sought for them and inquired for them. We saw signs of
millions in the season gone by; everywhere were acres of saplings
barked at the snow-line; the floor of the woods, in all parts visited,
was pebbled over with pellets; but we saw not one Woodrabbit and
heard only a vague report of 3 that an Indian claimed he had seen
in a remote part of the region late in the fall.
Then, since the Lynx is the logical apex of a pyramid of Rabbits,
it naturally goes down when the Rabbits are removed.
These bobtailed cats are actually starving and ready to enter
any kind of a trap or snare that carries a bait. The slaughter of
Lynxes in its relation to the Rabbit supply is shown by the H. B.
Company fur returns as follows:
In 1900, number of skins taken 4,473
" 1901 " 5,781
" 1902 " 9,117
" 1903 " 19,267
" 1904 " 36,116
" 1905 " 58,850
" 1906 " 61,388
" 1907 " 36,201
" 1908 " 9,664
Remembering, then, that the last of the Rabbits were wiped out in
the winter of 1906-7, it will be understood that there were thousands
of starving Lynxes roaming about the country. The number that we
saw, and their conditions, all helped to emphasise the dire story
of plague and famine.
Some of my notes are as follows:
May 18th, Athabaska River, on roof of a trapper's hut found the
bodies of 30 Lynxes.
May 19th, young Lynx shot to-day, female, very thin, weighed only
12 1/2 lbs., should have weighed 25. In its stomach nothing but
the tail of a white-footed mouse. Liver somewhat diseased. In its
bowels at least one tapeworm.
June 3d, a young male Lynx shot to-day by one of the police boys,
as previously recorded. Starving; it weighed only 15 lbs.
June 6th, adult female Lynx killed, weighed 15 lbs.; stomach contained
a Redsquirrel, a Chipmunk, and a Bog-lemming. (Synaptomys borealis.)
June 18th, young male Lynx, weight 13 lbs., shot by Preble on Smith
Landing; had in its stomach a Chipmunk (borealis) and 4 small young
of the same, apparently a week old; also a score of pinworms. How
did it get the Chipmunk family without digging them out?
June 26th, on Salt Mt. found the dried-up body of a Lynx firmly
held in a Bear trap.
June 29th, one of the Jarvis bear-cub skins was destroyed by the
dogs, except a dried-up paw, which he threw out yesterday. This
morning one of the men shot a starving Lynx in camp. Its stomach
contained nothing but the bear paw thrown out last night.
These are a few of my observations; they reflect the general
condition - all were starving. Not one of them had any Rabbit in its
stomach; not one had a bellyful; none of the females were bearing
young this year.
To embellish these severe and skeletal notes, I add some incidents
supplied by various hunters of the north.
Let us remember that the Lynx is a huge cat weighing 25 to 35 or
even 40 lbs., that it is an ordinary cat multiplied by some 4 or
5 diameters, and we shall have a good foundation for comprehension.
Murdo McKay has often seen 2 or 3 Lynxes together in March, the
mating season. They fight, and caterwaul like a lot of tomcats.
The uncatlike readiness of the Lynx to take to water is well known;
that it is not wholly at home there is shown by the fact that if
one awaits a Lynx at the landing he is making for, he will not turn
aside in the least, but come right on to land, fight, and usually
perish.
The ancient feud between cat and dog is not forgotten in the north,
for the Lynx is the deadly foe of the Fox and habitually kills it
when there is soft snow and scarcity of easier prey.
