This is a Canada Lynx, a species that has been re-introduced to Colorado over the past 15 years after being almost wiped out in the U.S. Look at those big feet! They act as snowshoes, as the cat evolved to hunt in snow. The picture was taken at the Frisco Creek Wildlife Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in Colorado, formerly the Dieterich Native Species Treatment Center. You can read about the center at Mud ’N Feathers.
The center's founder Susan Dieterich commented on the post and assures us the lynx in the picture was fine, just sedated for a health check. A lynx can look amazingly cuddly when asleep, but dangerous when alert, because they prefer to avoid human contact. -via reddit
"Breeding program" is for the good of the species."Farming" is to exploit for human use, like fur farming. That's what I thought you meant! My apologies.
But yeah, the program to bring Lynx into Colorado had a lot of problems at the beginning. Read more about it here. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0601/feature4/index.html