After days of lynx sightings in and around Yellowknife, the NWT’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources said on Thursday one of the animals had been killed.
A lynx was said to have been responsible for an attack on a dog near the city’s Tin Can Hill trails, while musher Trevor Lizotte told the CBC a lynx had recently attacked a member of his dog team.
Asked on Wednesday whether the lynx was dead, the department said on Thursday wildlife officers had killed it near the dump.
“I can confirm that ENR officers in the North Slave region located and dispatched the lynx near the Yellowknife solid waste facility,” department spokesperson Mike Westwick said by email.
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“ENR’s preference is to catch and move wildlife out of the city whenever possible, but in this case the animal had to be dispatched for public safety reasons.”
Westwick said the lynx killed was “very likely the one connected to multiple interactions that put local residents or their pets in danger.”
He said the animal had showed “no hesitancy in actively interacting with people or traffic” when found by ENR, and had been killed in a “safe, humane manner when the opportunity presented itself” to protect public safety.
The lynx will now be studied to assess the potential presence of disease, Westwick wrote.
Dozens of residents shared photos and video of a lynx in various Yellowknife neighbourhoods on Monday and Tuesday.
Whether a lone animal was wandering the city or more than one had been sighted is not clear.
