Purring, fighting, chaos and crunching bones: these are the sounds of the Canada lynx

Originally published on May 8, 2021.

By attaching audio recorders to Canada lynx, researchers have come up with a new way to monitor these elusive predators.

Canada lynx are notoriously hard to track, which makes it incredibly challenging for the researchers who study them. 

"I spent three years in the field specifically tracking them, and rarely ever saw them," said Emily Studd, a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Alberta.

You just hear chaos. And then... you hear what you think is bones cracking.- Emily Studd, University of Alberta

To get a better understanding of the animals' hunting behaviours, Studd and her colleagues spent five years on a project that involved attaching audio recorders, as well as accelerometers, to the animals. In total they deployed 39 collars on 26 lynx, ultimately collecting over 14,470 hours worth of data.

Studd says that while much of the audio is just the sound of cats sleeping, they also were able to successfully capture a wide range of hunting behaviours.

"The first time going through the audio files... you just hear chaos. And then click a little bit further along and you hear what you think is bones cracking," said Studd.  

The team also captured audio of the animals cleaning themselves, fighting, bonding, and even whining when they lost a meal.

"This has provided us with a huge amount of data that we wouldn't get any other way, specifically on how often are lynx chasing, how often are they successful and what are they killing? And when?" said Studd.

The research was published in the journal British Ecological Society.

You can listen to the interview with Emily Studd and the sounds of the Canada lynx at the link above.

Produced and written by Amanda Buckiewicz