For the moment, a federal judge’s ruling that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service failed to protect adequately the lynx when it listed the wild cat as a threatened species is nothing more than an order for the service to re-evaluate and reconsider. Six months from now – Judge Gladys Kessler gave USFWS 180 days to get it right – re-evaluation and reconsideration could be widespread.

It is almost inevitable, given the wording and tone of the judge’s ruling, that getting it right will mean elevating the lynx’s status to endangered. The flaws she cited in the March 2000 threatened listing agree on nearly every point with the claims by the plaintiffs – a coalition of conservation groups led by Defenders of Wildlife – that the service acted arbitrarily and capriciously in discounting the viability of lynx populations in the Northeast, the Great Lakes and the Southern Rockies and in failing to designate critical habitat in those regions. While there is no question that the greatest concentration of lynx is in the Northern Rockies, Judge Kessler (and the plaintiffs, including RESTORE) are correct that the Endangered Species Act does not withhold protection merely, and paradoxically, because an animal is rare in a particular region.

There is a question about whether the lynx in each of these four regions is a distinct population segment, an important issue in ESA recovery plans. However, as Maine has learned from its unsuccessful experience fighting the endangered listing of wild Atlantic salmon, the DPS question often is inconclusively answered and the lingering doubts do not forestall protections.

The impact of an endangered listing will vary among the regions. Out West, where great amounts of land are under federal ownership, the listing could bring greater restrictions on public lands regarding snowmobiles, the construction and maintenance of forestry roads and forest fire prevention and fighting techniques. In Maine, the prime lynx habitat in the Northeast, there is little federal land so the changes will be less sweeping.

Specific uses and practices that run afoul of the ESA will have to be addressed. Maine’s new governor and Legislature would do well not to repeat the counterproductive hysteria of the salmon days, that blustery period in which the state accomplished little except wasting money, delaying the delivery of federal resources (that is, money) and looking over-excited. Maine may well have to make some adjustments – an end, or at least substantial curtailment, of its inhumane coyote-snaring program would a welcome start – but the irrational predictions of the end of life as we know it in Maine that did not come true with salmon are just as unlikely with lynx.