Iberian Lynx Makes an Impressive Comeback

It may not sound like much to go from “endangered” to “vulnerable,” but for the Iberian lynx, the change augurs very good news for the species. Though still among the rarest cats in the world, the lynx’s rebound from near-extinction just two decades ago is evidence that conservation works, especially when all stakeholders are included in the effort.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) says it edited the Iberian lynx entry in its Red List of Threatened Species because the population has increased from 62 mature individual cats in 2001 to more than ten times that number now. If you count the young ones, there are more than 2000 lynxes living in Spain and Portugal.

Habitat loss, poaching, and road accidents had pushed the species to the brink. It didn’t help that the cat’s primary food source, the European rabbit, was also endangered. So conservationists focused on restoring the cats’ Mediterranean scrub and forest habitat, reducing traffic-related deaths, and pumping up numbers of that rabbit. They also expanded the species’ genetic diversity, mainly by moving them around to prevent inbreeding. 

The cat’s turnaround is only “the greatest recovery of a cat species ever achieved through conservation,” according to Francisco Javier Salcedo Ortiz, coordinator of the LIFE Lynx-Connect project, which led the conservation action for the lynx. Ortiz credits the success of the project with the concerted efforts of “public bodies, scientific institutions, NGOs, private companies, and community members including local landowners, farmers, gamekeepers, and hunters.”

It’s all good news, but conservationists have to remain vigilant. The rabbit population remains precarious, poaching and road kills have not disappeared, and the lynx is susceptible to diseases spread by domestic cats. We’re only beginning to understand how climate change is threatening the cats’ habitat.

“There is still a lot of work to do to ensure that Iberian lynx populations survive and the species recovers throughout its indigenous range,” says Ortiz. “Looking ahead, there are plans to reintroduce the Iberian lynx to new sites in central and northern Spain.”

Photo credit: CoDe83 / iNaturalist CC BY-NC