Most mammalian predators rely on a variety of prey, which complicates mathematical modeling; however, a few predators have become highly specialized and seek almost exclusively a single prey species. An example of this simplified predator-prey interaction is seen in Canadian northern forests, where the populations of the lynx and the snowshoe hare are intertwined in a life and death struggle.

One reason that this particular system has been so extensively studied is that the Hudson Bay company kept careful records of all furs from the early 1800s into the 1900s. The records for the furs collected by the Hudson Bay company showed distinct oscillations (approximately 12 year periods), suggesting that these species caused almost periodic fluctuations of each other's populations. The table here shows data from 1900 to 1920.