Small Wild Cats

[StefanC]

I have had personal correspondence with an official at SVA and can now confirm that the large Lynx male shot near Vilhelmina/Storuman (Västerbotten County, Sweden) in 2013, did indeed scale 34 kg. This is  the animal shown in the picture at the start of this thread.

I also asked for information on the average masses and spread for males and females.

Average mass for males >1yrs old is 17.5 kg. There are several male lynxes just below 30 kg but only one above (the animal we are discussing). Average mass for females >1yrs old is 16.8 kg. The largest female scales 22 kg. These averages are based on roughly 3000 dead Lynx examined by SVA, about 1600 males and 1400 females.

Personal reflections: Compare the figures above with data from “Wild Cats of the World” (2002) as quoted by GuateGojira in an earlier post (thanks btw). The sample size (n) is declared for Russia, Romania, Poland, Kashmir and Pakistan but not for Sweden. Why this is, is not clear. Example: the Russian sample sizes are 10 males and 12 females for column WT (mass in kg). All sample sizes in this table are single or low double digits. The actual Swedish sample size is about two orders of magnitude larger. We should therefore put more trust in the Swedish numbers than the others.

In addition, it would be informative to learn not just the mean, but also the median and mode for males and females. This will tell us how skewed the distribution is. Mean mass of females and males differ by only 0.7 kg, but as is clear, males can grow substantially larger, and it is likely there are more undiscovered large males out there. The Swedish numbers are likely representative of the Scandinavian population, i.e. Norway and Sweden, and perhaps also for Finland (total Scandinavian population somewhere around 3000 animals). Both Finland and Norway are likely to keep similar records and having access to them would be valuable. Poland, Russia and Romania probably don’t. It would be particularly valuable to get data from the Carpathians (Romania) since they have a very healthy Lynx population of similar size to the Scandinavian one.

Finally, the topic starter should correct the title of the thread. Reply