Written by Ashley Ingalsbe, summer 2026 NW CASC climate adaptation storytelling intern 

Stretching nearly 700 miles, the Cascade Mountain Range has long served as a critical refuge for countless high-elevation, climate-sensitive species. For centuries, cold microclimates, dense snowpack and glacier-fed lakes and streams have created ideal conditions for these species. However, as global temperatures rise and climate change continues to reshape habitats across the Pacific Northwest, high-elevation species in the Cascades of Washington, including the Canada lynx and the Cascade red fox, are among those facing the greatest risk.

Two studies supported by the Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (NW CASC), led by researchers Sujay Singh and Sarah Converse, aim to address crucial research gaps by investigating how climate change is affecting these elusive, cold-adapted mammals. Through their respective studies on the Canada lynx and Cascade red fox, Singh and Converse examine population density, habitat use and occupancy patterns to build the scientific foundation needed to guide conservation and management strategies in the Cascades.

Source: Sujay Singh

To better understand how these climate pressures are unfolding, a study led by Sujay Singh, 2024 NW CASC research fellow and a graduate student in the Mammal Spatial Ecology and Conservation Lab at Washington State University, set out to determine how environmental variables such as temperature, tree canopy and prey abundance might influence where Canada lynx and their warm-adapted competitors, bobcats, may be present on the landscape.

Through his research, Singh estimated the densities of both species along the southern edge of the lynxes’ habitat range in Washington. By first understanding where lynx and bobcats are present on the landscape, he was able to examine how temperature, tree canopy and prey abundance affected overlap between the species. Since range-edge populations exist at lower densities and are among the first to experience climate shifts and other stressors, studying them can provide valuable insight into how core populations at the range’s center might respond to climate change or other unexpected disturbances.

Despite Washington state being home to one of six remaining populations of the Canada lynx in the contiguous United States, fewer than 50 members of the federally threatened species remain in the mountain range. As cold-adapted, specialist predators, lynx are highly vulnerable to environmental changes. Their large, snowshoe-like paws are adapted for traveling on deep snow, making them heavily reliant on dense snowpack and snowshoe hare populations to survive.

Bobcats, lynxes’ warm-adapted counterparts, are generalist predators that can thrive under a wide range of environmental conditions. Their expansion into new habitats could reduce snowshoe hare availability for lynx, which can already occur at low abundances. Evidence suggests that northward range shifts by bobcats could increase pressure on lynx populations.

Source: Sujay Singh

In close collaboration with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Washington Department of Natural Resources, who contributed funding, access to field sites, and logistical support, Singh set out to estimate summer population densities of lynx and bobcats in Loomis State Forest, one of the few places in the United States containing reproducing populations of both species. The team used a noninvasive camera trap system, deploying 72 double-sided camera stations along human-created movement corridors, including roads and trails. The resulting images were processed and sorted using a machine learning software, after which a small group of undergraduate volunteers, along with Singh’s team, identified individual lynx and bobcats through unique fur markings along their flanks, tails and legs.

The team utilized a spatially explicit capture-recapture model (SECR) to estimate population density and examine how temperature, canopy height and snowshoe hare abundance influenced where each species occurred on the landscape.

“All it [SECR] is doing is estimating activity centers. If you think about yourself, you probably have these specific areas where you like to concentrate most of your activity; your house, getting groceries, getting food with friends,” Singh said. “That’s essentially what spatially explicit capture recapture is doing. It [SECR] is estimating these activity centers for individuals. It’s using them as a proxy for how many individuals there are over a given area. So it’s not actually counting how many cats it sees, it’s using how many cats it sees and how far apart it’s seeing these detections to figure out where cats may be spending most of their time.”

The findings, outlined in his recent paper in the journal Scientific Reports, suggested that maximum temperature was the strongest predictor of density for both species. Furthermore, climate projections indicated that as temperatures continue to rise, lynx density will decline substantially, while bobcat populations are expected to shift toward higher elevations and remain relatively stable. As a result, more areas are expected to have potential for overlap with low lynx density and high bobcat density. Lynx are already vulnerable to impacts including habitat fragmentation and limited prey abundance, and competition with bobcats for the same resources could further strain their populations.

However, not all hope is lost for these cold-loving mammals. By identifying where climate change is most likely to drive species distribution, Singh’s survey and research efforts have been crucial to advancing conservation action. Notably, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife used his publication and research results in the 2026 Periodic Lynx Status Assessment, which has been used to evaluate climate threats and drive targeted habitat recovery efforts for lynx. “These findings have since been used to inform ongoing management decisions, including the recommendation that lynx remain listed as endangered in Washington”, said Singh.

Although density has served as a useful proxy for competition, Singh hopes future research will dig deeper into how lynx and bobcats are directly or indirectly impacting one another. Further biological research could help investigate the genetic mechanisms influencing how lynx respond to temperature, with potential next steps in the research focusing on thermal regulation to better understand the species intrinsic ties to temperature. More broadly, Singh also emphasizes the utility of camera traps for long-term monitoring and estimating baseline population metrics, and believes their use should be expanded further.

These dynamics between cold-adapted specialists and their warm-adapted counterparts are also playing out in the South Cascades. An ongoing NW CASC-supported study led by Sarah Converse examines another species facing an uncertain future amid a changing climate, the Cascade red fox.

Source: Louis Kreemer, project field technician

The Cascade red fox, designated as endangered by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife in 2022, and recently petitioned for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act, is a rare, highly elusive subspecies of red fox endemic to Washington. Due to its scarcity, it remains widely understudied, with little research available on its behavior, abundance and demography. A 2022 Periodic Status Report identified several threats to its survival, including limited genetic diversity, habitat fragmentation, increased predation, disease and the expansion of coyotes, a potential predator and competitor, into higher elevations.

Similar to bobcats, coyotes are highly adaptable habitat and diet generalists. While coyotes and Cascade red foxes have coexisted for a very long time, coyotes have historically favored more lower-elevation areas while Cascade red foxes have occupied high-elevation meadows and alpine habitats. Much like the shifting dynamics playing out between bobcats and lynx, under climate change, it appears to be easier for coyotes to exploit these high-elevation areas, contributing to increased competition with the Cascade red fox. Understanding how these climate-driven threats shape fox behavior and spatial distribution is critical to developing strategies that support population recovery.

Sarah Converse, unit leader for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Washington Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit and professor in the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, sought to establish a research framework for the Cascade red fox, with the goal of providing essential scientific insights to guide long-term management. As principal investigator of the project, Converse works alongside a small field team, using GPS tracking collars combined with existing genetic and camera capture data to analyze the impacts of various threats, as well as the abundance, behavior and habitat use of the Cascade red fox. Through GPS data, camera traps, scat collection and continued monitoring, Converse’s team has been investigating how foxes use the landscape. The next phase of the project will take a closer look at coyotes to determine whether increasing overlap is influencing fox behavior and spatial distribution. Ultimately, as coyotes expand into higher elevations, Cascade red foxes may face a future similar to that of lynx.

“The collars that we’ve put on have really provided that glimpse into their lives in a way that’s really powerful,” said Converse. “It’s really cool when we get a glimpse at an animal that people rarely see, and that we know so little about.”

Source: Nate Redon

Nate Redon, a Ph.D. student and member of Converse’s Quantitative Conservation Lab, has played a central role in leading fieldwork. According to Converse, “[He] came into the project with a lot of experience with high-elevation predators. And at this point, Nate has probably had his hands on more Cascade red foxes, for research, than any other human ever.” Their work often requires traveling deep into remote mountain terrain in the middle of winter, where Redon, accompanied by one or two others, relies on skis or snowmobiles to reach trap sites and respond quickly whenever a fox is captured. Months of scouting, camera monitoring and track surveys may be required before a single animal is caught.

“We’re always out there in the winter so that we can scout for their tracks in the snow and collect their scat to do some genetic analyses,” said Redon. “We are just trying to put ourselves in the mind of a fox and spending as much time out there as possible trying to find these extremely rare guys.”

Recalling their first capture of a fox is a moment Redon will never forget.

Source: Scott Shively

“It was great when we captured the very first one, because up to that point, it was all just theoretical.” described Redon, “No one had tried to capture these up there in the winter before. This was the first non-habituated individual ever captured.”

While the project currently remains in its early stages, GPS tracking has already begun to reveal valuable patterns in Cascade red fox ecology. According to Redon, collared foxes have exhibited unexpectedly large home ranges for such a small carnivore, with movements changing dramatically between seasons. During the summer, foxes remain concentrated at higher elevations. In the winter their home ranges expand substantially, suggesting they travel much farther to locate food and resources, which may be connected to climate-driven changes in prey availability. Despite their movement in the winter, the early findings of this study suggest that foxes continue to favor the highest elevations available on the landscape.

These early findings are helping shape the project’s long-term goals, which aim to translate new ecological insights into conservation action. Bringing together a broad network of collaborators, Converse and colleagues are undertaking a structured decision-making process to identify management strategies for Cascade red fox conservation amid a changing landscape, with a focus on helping Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife with recovery planning.

“With structured decision making, we’re providing the science to help managers make decisions related to Cascade red fox recovery, while accounting for all of the uncertainty that exists,” said Converse. “I just see it as a really effective way of framing what I think of as decision-inspired science.”

Converse further emphasizes the importance of collaboration, highlighting the partners who have contributed resources and helped guide research, including the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the state of Washington, the Yakama Nation and the nonprofit Cascades Carnivore Project. Moving forward, the Cascade red fox field team will be expanding, with the addition of a new graduate student who will investigate whether changing snow characteristics facilitate coyotes’ presence in the alpine during the wintertime, when foxes might be particularly at risk of mortality. By combining ecological research with collaborative management, the project aims to provide the information necessary to protect the Cascade red fox while serving as a model for conserving other alpine species vulnerable to climate change.

Source: Scott Shively

These NW CASC-supported studies suggest similar ecological dynamics between two high-elevation habitat specialists and their respective low-elevation generalist counterparts. As climate change alters high-elevation habitats, species’ ranges are likely to shift and overlap between high- and low-elevation species may increase. These shifting patterns could intensify competition for resources, putting additional pressures on already imperiled species like the Canada lynx and Cascade red fox. Ultimately, as climate change continues to reshape the Cascade landscape, understanding these dynamics will become increasingly important for guiding management decisions that support the resilience of both species and the ecosystems they inhabit.

Photo sources for banner at top of article: top row – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (left), Scott Shively (middle), Nate Redon (right) / bottom row – Nate Redon (left), Louis Kreemer (middle), Nate Redon (right)