The project has shown that each lynx’s movements is different. Some stick around their home range. Other lynxes go exploring—as Kielland calls it—and then return home. But lynxes do not migrate seasonally, summering in one place and wintering in another. Instead, the ones that go the distance are more likely to travel in a one way dispersal that Kielland and his team are researching.
Dispersals are also more common than researchers knew. “What we’re finding out now is that it’s on a fairly large scale. Lots of animals do this, apparently, and they’re going really long distances,” says Kielland. For example, a collared lynx nicknamed Hobo traveled 2,174 miles from June 2017 to July 2018. “That was really quite something,” Kielland says.
Yet scientists aren’t exactly sure what the reasons are for these epic journeys. The main hypothesis is that lynxes disperse when food is scarce. But hare hunting is unlikely to explain everything about lynx movements.
“It’s still unclear to me why they would end up moving so far. You would think that they should be able to find some food eventually. They shouldn’t have to go hundreds of miles to find it,” Kielland says. He concludes that other factors are likely involved. “There are other things that go into the matter of being a lynx,” he says. Someday, the project might help reveal what those things are.