For decades, Canada lynx were phantoms of the wild woods, the only concrete signs of their existence cookie-cutter tracks across the snow and the sporadic tales relayed by woodsmen in the same breath as sheepish admissions of sasquatch sightings.

And no wonder.

It takes state biologist Shannon Crowley two hours by highway, two more on dirt logging roads pitted with axle-breaking potholes and another hour on the wind-whipped back of a snowmobile just to reach lynx territory.

Crowley and his three-woman crew make this trip from their Bangor office to lynx habitat weekly all winter long, despite the unpredictability of life at the Clayton Lake research camp. Logging trucks sometimes block for hours the only road in or out of camp. Other days, well-worn state snowmobiles – named Crash and Floppy on account of their “personalities” – stand in the way of science.

But against countless odds, biology has prevailed.

Phantom no more

In the six years the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has been studying the state’s wildest cat, biologists have proved that lynx live and breed in Maine. They have handled 63 tawny, blue-eyed kittens, discovered that lynx-bobcat hybrids can breed, and documented the largest litters south of the Canadian border.

When DIF&W first faced the possibility more than 10 years ago that Canada lynx could be listed as federally threatened, state scientists didn’t have so much as a photograph proving that the cats lived in Maine. There was never any doubt that the cat passed through the Maine woods, but with tight research budgets, evidence of a resident population was hard to come by.

Today, DIF&W lynx study leader Jennifer Vashon’s Bangor office is plastered with lynx. Late Maine warden service pilot Jack McPhee smiles from the wall, his arms full of fluff that, on closer inspection, is revealed to be a litter of kittens. An adult lynx sits sphynxlike on a snowbank, captured by the camera but an enigma still.

Maine has been among the national leaders in lynx research since federal protection was established throughout the lower 48 states in 2000. But the state still can’t put a number on their population.

“I’d hate to even hazard a guess,” Vashon said.

Scientists know the cat thrives at the heart of the industrial forest. And, based on historical trapping records, biologists believe lynx could be living throughout the northwestern third of the state.

“All we know is that south of Millinocket and somewhere between Greenville and Bangor, you lose lynx,” Vashon said.

Snow is a necessity for lynx, whose thick paw fur acts like webbing to keep a full-grown 20- to 30-pound cat aloft even in the softest drifts. Trees that are too few or too old can’t provide habitat for the snowshoe hare that lynx eat almost exclusively, which tends to keep the cats near logging crews and far from human communities.

“Basically, when you have snowshoe hare, you have lynx,” Vashon said.

Last winter, state and federal scientists began a three-year effort to comb the commercial forest for lynx tracks in hopes of determining how far the cats wander. For six winters, biologists such as Crowley have trapped lynx and outfitted them with radio collars, then followed their signals to the dens where they give birth to kittens each spring.

The data are beginning to trickle in, but what Maine’s biologists really need to track lynx population trends is a study that lasts at least a decade, Vashon said.

At year six, DIF&W’s study needs about $150,000 annually to survive, which Vashon so far has managed to gather by piecing together state, federal and private funds. In recent years, however, grants have fallen off, and the state has been forced to pick up the slack. The future of the program is anything but secure.

“We go year to year,” Vashon said.

Home base

This winter, four biologists are holed up in a rented logging cabin at Clayton Lake. For 10 days at a stretch they can communicate with the outside world only from a few hilltops, where weather and geography occasionally conspire to allow a signal to go through Canadian cell phone towers.

Since mid-December, they have caught five new cats and two kittens, as well as replaced worn-out radio collars on several other lynx. One old male has been caught a half-dozen times because he seems to consider the half-frozen beaver meat that baits the traps worth the indignity of a few hours in a cage.

“He’s getting so he’s not even scared of us,” Crowley says.

Another cat, a female McPhee called “Josie” when he flew over twice weekly listening to her radio collar chirp, has eluded the biologists for months.

“We know her really well. We know all her movements, we just can’t catch her,” Crowley says.

Every seat at the table where the crew gathers to eat dinner looks over the artifacts of their investigation. A laminated map shows the web of nameless logging roads that the biologists know as well as the streets of their hometowns. A marker board lists the vital statistics of the cats being targeted by 27 traps tucked under evergreen trees and along streambeds, miles into the woods.

“We’re really trying to focus on getting the kittens,” Crowley says.

Following these young cats could provide answers on how well lynx survive and how they establish territories. Samples of their blood and fur could be used for a genetic analysis to sort out the soap opera of feline paternity.

Just after the sun rises each morning, the biologists load their snowmobiles with blankets and hot-water bottles, frozen bits of beaver and a tackle box – which seems to hold half a veterinarian’s office – and set out on marathon rides to check the traps.

Every few yards, cat tracks cross the hard-packed trail, a neat line of dots where a lynx has delicately picked its way across the snow. The tracks start to blur when they intersect with the strings of tridents that snowshoe hare leave behind.

“When [lynx] start to run, they’re hopping like rabbits, bounding through the snow,” Crowley says.

Lynx are all around, but, despite the bits of deer hide, grouse wings, shiny old compact discs and even “skunk essence” bedecking the trees to lure curious cats, one trap after another turns up empty.

“You see tracks and figure if they’ve been here once, they’re going to come back,” he says.

Then, a message, barely comprehensible through the crackling static, comes over Crowley’s radio: “We’ve got one.” The cat is in the next township over, an hour’s drive away.

“This is the hardest part for me … anticipation,” Crowley says, grinning as he revs up his snowmobile.

Lynx at last

Within a hundred yards of the trap, all four biologists start speaking in whispers. The lynx is tranquilized, its eyes covered in a purple fleece sheath and its limp body tucked into a cocoon of wool blankets and hot-water bottles. It’s a young female whose green ear tags indicate that biologists handled her as a kitten two years ago.

The researchers snap on white plastic gloves and immediately go to work, glancing at their watches as they count down the 45 minutes or so before the drugs start to wear off. Four work as one, with communication no longer necessary.

Lynnea Shunta uses a tape measure and a whole kit of calipers to take precise measurements of the cat’s head and feet, her teeth and her tiny black-tipped tail, reporting the figures in urgent whispers. Meanwhile, Holly Shepley draws vials of blood that will be sent to the National Cancer Institute for genetic analysis and studies of feline disease. Crowley uses tweezers to pluck a tuft of white-tipped fur.

When Crowley and fellow biologist Sarah Boyden lift the lynx to suspend her from a scale, amazing furry legs dangle in the air. The lynx is a caricature of a proper cat, its lanky body and giant feet almost too cartoonish to be real. Her velvety paws are so well-insulated that her bones, toe pads and long, tearing claws disappear into the fur.

The lynx starts to quiver, and the biologists quicken their pace, packing up their equipment and giving her a final shot to reverse the effects of the anesthesia before stepping away from the blanketed lump.

After an eternity of waiting, her ears prick up and the tufts of hair that crown them are black horns against the white snow. She stares, with unblinking golden eyes. Silently, from 20 feet away, the scientists stare back. Her hairless lips almost smirk, the ends curling up as she takes stock of the situation.

But the spell is broken when the young lynx tries to take a step, and stumbles face-first into the sugary snow, struggling to shake off the effects of a muscle relaxant. She circles and staggers, a yellow eye always on the strange visitors, then finally disappears over a sparkling drift.

Crowley and his crew stand breathlessly for a moment, but then more work needs to be done. Sleds need to be loaded and dozens more traps checked. This is the last research trip of the season and five cats with rapidly dying radio signals are still AWOL.