Tweety black cockatoo : The Iberian lynx is no longer endangered, thanks to a huge conservation initiative.
A predatory species has battled its way back from the verge of extinction, with only 62 mature individuals remaining. The increase in numbers has been dubbed the “greatest ever” recovery of a big cat through conservation.
It was just 23 years ago that the global population of wild Iberian lynx reached that alarmingly low level. And in 2014, the once-common cat, which has roamed areas of Europe for at least a million years, was designated as endangered.
During the twentieth century, the medium-sized wild cat was eradicated across much of the continent due to the idea that it destroyed livestock. In recent years, it has frequently been killed by cars, starved as a result of prey species extinction, and lost its native range due to development.
While the Iberian lynx’s prospects seems dismal, the IUCN released an update to its Red List of Threatened Species on Thursday. It confirmed that the population has recovered due to a spectacular conservation effort.
How did the Iberian lynx recover from the brink of extinction?
In 2022, the Iberian lynx population had increased to 648 mature individuals. According to current estimates, the population is around 2000.
The increase in population is directly related to the protection and restoration of Iberian lynx habitat, as well as the reproduction of its principal prey species, the European rabbit. This corresponded with a long-term breeding effort and individual translocations to prevent populations from becoming inbred. As a result, the Iberian lynx’s conservation status was officially raised from endangered to threatened with extinction.
According to Francisco Javier Salcedo Ortiz, who led the recovery effort, it was the “greatest recovery of a cat species ever achieved through conservation”.
“There is still more effort to be done to guarantee that Iberian lynx populations survive and the species recovers over its native range. The LIFE Lynx-Connect project coordinator stated that future plans include reintroducing the Iberian lynx to new places in central and northern Spain.