Basics
The Iberian Lynx
By m.p.
Jul 27, 2007 - 7:41 PM

The Iberian Lynx (lynx pardinus), probably the most famous of the species native to Spain, is one of the most endangered species on the planet and the most threatened of the world’s 36 species of big cat. Only an estimated 160 animals are believed to still live in the wild.
The lince ibérico was once common in both Spain and Portugal, as well as parts of southern France, but now stands close to the edge of extinction, with the real danger that it could become the first species of cat to die out since the sabre-toothed tiger some 10,000 years ago. It became the first wild cat species to be listed, in 2002, as Critically Endangered on the IUCN (World Conservation Union) Red List of Threatened Species.

The ancestor to lynx pardinus, the lynx pardinus spelaea, lived on the Iberian peninsula as long ago as the Pleistocene period, as confirmed by fossiled bones which were uncovered in excavations at the Atapuerca archaeological site in Burgos, in the ‘Sima de los Huesos,’ ‘The Pit of Bones.’
There is also archaeological evidence that Iberian tribes worshipped the lynx as a god, as a beast with supernatural powers and a link to the underworld.
In later years, a Roman legion, made up entirely of Hispanic soldiers, proudly bore the image of the lynx as their standard and on their breastplates, in recognition of the strength of the beast.

This solitary creature is smaller than its close relative, the Eurasian Lynx, weighing an average of 9 kilos for the female and 13 for the male.
It’s a mainly nocturnal animal which prefers woodland or dense scrub as its habitat, and open pastures for hunting its staple diet of rabbit. A lynx needs one rabbit a day to survive.

Numbers began to decline around two centuries ago and by the early 20th century had dropped to around 100,000 in southern Spain and Portugal. The decline continued, as their natural habitat was destroyed to make way for development and infrastructure, along with road casualties, hunting and accidental trapping.

The myxomatosis disease which hit Spain’s rabbit population in the 1950s further reduced numbers, and was followed by another disease which decimated the lynx’s main prey: hemorrhagic pneumonia.
By 1992, a census estimated that only between 880 and 1,150 of the cats were still alive in Spain, and just 350 of them were breeding females.
Their territory has now been reduced to two main breeding populations in the Doñana Nature Park in Huelva, and in the eastern part of the Sierra Morena in Jaén.

A conservation programme is underway to save the species, the ‘Life Lince’ project, which is sponsored by the European Union and co-financed with European funding. It has two aims: to continue with work to improve lynx habitats in Doñana and the Sierra Morena and manage the rabbit population there; and, as a complementary tool, reintroduce to the wild lynx which have been born in captivity.
The Acebuche captive breeding centre in Doñana saw its first successful birth in 2005: 12 of the 16 lynx kittens who have now been born there have survived.

We can only hope that these efforts will help to stop the Iberian Lynx from going the way of the Pyrenean Ibex, which once spread across the southern slopes of the Pyrenees, and became extinct on 6th January 2000 when the last animal was found dead in the Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park.