MADRID (AP) — The Iberian lynx is doing well. Just over two decades ago, the pointy-eared wildcat was on the brink of extinction, but as of Thursday the International Union for Conservation of Nature said it is no longer an endangered species.
Successful conservation efforts mean the animal, native to Spain and Portugal, is now barely a vulnerable species, according to the latest version of the IUCN Red List.
In 2001, there were only 62 adult Iberian lynxes – medium-sized, spotted brown cats with characteristic pointed ears and a few beard-like tufts of facial hair – on the Iberian Peninsula. The species’ disappearance was closely linked to that of its main prey, the European rabbit, as well as habitat degradation and human activity.
The alarm was raised and breeding, reintroduction and conservation projects were initiated, as well as efforts to restore habitats such as dense forests, Mediterranean scrub and meadows. More than twenty years later, in 2022, nature reserves in southern Spain and Portugal counted 648 adult specimens. The latest census last year shows there are more than 2,000 adults and young people, the IUCN said.
“It really is a huge success, an exponential increase in population size,” Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN Red List section, told The Associated Press.
One of the keys to their recovery was the attention paid 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 largest recovery of a cat species ever achieved through conservation (…) is the result of committed collaboration between government agencies, scientific institutions, NGOs, private companies and community members, including local landowners, farmers, game wardens and hunters,” Francisco Javier Salcedo Ortiz, who coordinates the EU-funded LIFE Lynx-Connect project, said in a statement.
IUCN has also worked with local communities to raise awareness of the importance of the Iberian lynx in the ecosystem, reducing animal mortality due to poaching and road kill. In addition, farmers receive compensation if the cats kill their livestock, Hilton-Taylor said.
Since 2010, more than 400 Iberian lynx have been reintroduced to parts of Portugal and Spain, and they now cover at least 3,320 square kilometers, up from 449 square kilometers in 2005.
“We have to take everything into consideration before releasing a lynx, and about every four years we review the protocols,” said Ramón Pérez de Ayala, the World Wildlife Fund’s Spanish species project manager. WWF is one of the NGOs involved in the project.
While the latest update to the Red List offers hope for other species in the same situation, the lynx is not yet out of danger, Hilton-Taylor says.
The biggest uncertainty is what will happen to rabbits, an animal vulnerable to viral outbreaks and other diseases that can be transmitted by pets.
“We were also concerned about climate change issues, how the habitat will respond to climate change, especially the increasing impact of fires, as we have seen in the Mediterranean over the past two years,” Hilton-Taylor said.
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Brooks reported from Copenhagen, Denmark.
