Five Iberian lynx have been released into the wild in southern Spain this week as part of an expanding breeding programme aimed at conserving one of the world’s most endangered feline species with distinctive long black ear tufts.
Darting out of their crates one by one, Saturno and Sotillo, two male lynx bred in captivity, and two wild-born females, Solera and Ilexa, along with her kitten Terre, will be free to reproduce and populate the mountainous Sierra Arana area in the Andalusian province of Granada.
“It’s the specific objective of this project to create a re-introduction area here,” regional programme coordinator Javier Salcedo said. “It’s another milestone for this project.”
In 2002, Iberian lynx were on the brink of extinction due to poaching, road accidents and encroachment on their habitat by farming. Only 94 specimens were registered in Spain and none in Portugal at the time.
By 2015, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) downgraded the threat level to ‘Endangered’ from ‘Critically Endangered’, which Spain’s Environment Ministry said was thanks to the ongoing conservation efforts.
