From a mountain lion moving through to an overweight black bear, the trail camera videos of the Voyageurs Wolf Project in northern Minnesota continue to produce and surprise.
The latest: A lynx looking to make a meal out of a nearby grouse strutting at the trail's edge.
Wolf researchers were collecting video cards from their cameras and later spotted the wildlife meetup, which occurred in late March.
"What are the odds? Right spot, right time," said Tom Gable, who runs the wolf research project, which studies the behavior and lives of packs using GPS tracking in the Voyageurs region. The project began in 2015.
Gable guessed that the lynx on camera was likely moving through. He said the cameras have yet to capture more than one lynx, and most imagery of lynxes has come at night.
Alas, the grouse flew off unscathed, and the lynx moved on. Snowshoe hares are a common target of lynx, according to the Department of Natural Resources, but the cats pursue birds and other small mammals, too. The lynx is regarded as a species of special concern.
As for wolves, Gable and his team will go into dens to count and tag pups in the coming weeks, marking a new biological year for the wolves and for continued research.
