In just 20 years, the Iberian lynx has gone from the world’s most endangered feline to the greatest triumph in cat conservation
Wildlife underpasses, such as this one below a highway connecting Andalusia with Madrid, help lynx move through their territory safely. They have surprised researchers by learning to live near people, such as in neighborhoods and commercial olive groves—mostly by staying out of sight.Lynx breed easily in captivity, however, and most of the animals that eventually were reintroduced into carefully chosen habitats throughout Spain and Portugal have thrived.
But the cat’s not out of danger just yet. Its thousand-square-mile territory is a collage of five—soon to be seven—isolated groups. For Iberian lynx to fully recover, they must be able to roam from one group to another, ensuring the species’ long-term health by diversifying gene pools. Ideally, these interventions will boost the number of breeding females to 750 on the Iberian Peninsula by the end of 2040, at which point the species would be much less vulnerable to extinction, according to Salcedo.Alfonso Moreno Vega, a technician with WWF Spain, a project partner, holds up an antenna to search for the signal of a lynx’s radio collar in eastern Sierra Morena.
A radio-collared lynx named Milvus easily leaps a fence into a rabbit research area run by WWF Spain in eastern Sierra Morena. Staff later fortified the fence with electricity to block Milvus—and other “cheeky” lynx, as photographer Sergio Marijuán describes them. An adult lynx needs to eat a rabbit a day to survive; a mother with kittens needs three.