admin Things aren’t looking too great for the Iberian lynx.
Just over twenty years ago, the pointy-eared wild cat was on the verge of extinction. However, as of Thursday, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announced that it is no longer considered an endangered species.
Thanks to successful conservation efforts, the Iberian lynx, native to Spain and Portugal, is now classified as merely vulnerable, according to the latest update of the IUCN Red List.
In 2001, there were only 62 mature Iberian lynxes—medium-sized, mottled brown cats with distinctive pointed ears and a pair of beard-like tufts of facial hair—left on the Iberian Peninsula. The decline of the species was closely tied to the reduction of its main prey, the European rabbit, as well as habitat degradation and human activities.
Alarm bells rang, leading to the initiation of breeding, reintroduction, and protection projects, alongside efforts to restore habitats such as dense woodland, Mediterranean scrublands, and pastures. More than two decades later, in 2022, nature reserves in southern Spain and Portugal were home to 648 adult lynxes. The latest census from last year indicates that there are now over 2,000 adults and juveniles, according to the IUCN.
“It’s really a huge success, an exponential increase in the population size,” Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN Red list unit, told The Associated Press.
One of the ways to save them was the attention given to the rabbit population, which had been affected by changes in agricultural production. Their recovery has led to a steady increase in the lynx population, Hilton-Taylor said.
“The greatest recovery of a cat species ever achieved through conservation (…) is the result of committed collaboration between public bodies, scientific institutions, NGOs, private companies, and community members including local landowners, farmers, gamekeepers and hunters,” Francisco Javier Salcedo Ortiz, who coordinates the EU-funded LIFE Lynx-Connect project, said in a statement.
The IUCN has also collaborated with local communities to raise awareness about the importance of the Iberian lynx in the ecosystem. This educational outreach has contributed to a significant reduction in lynx deaths due to poaching and roadkill. Additionally, farmers are compensated if their livestock is killed by the lynxes, according to Hilton-Taylor.
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