Iberian Lynx

My great passion has always been cats, big and small, known and less known.

For this reason, in July I went to Spain where, for some years now, a major WWF project has been underway to determine the increase in the population of the rare Iberian lynx, a species still threatened with extinction today. In fact, at the moment about 1100 individuals survive throughout Spain and the repopulation project aims to reach 4000 individuals by 2030, in this way the species will have guarantees of survival. The project began with the breeding of a nucleus of captive specimens whose young have been reintroduced into the wild, have successfully re-established and are now causing a steady increase in population throughout Spain, especially in the central region.

A curious thing is that before starting with the reintroduction of the feline it was necessary to proceed with the reintroduction of the wild rabbit, the main prey of the Iberian lynx, for which a parallel project was made with a great success and now wild rabbits are abundant in uncultivated land and this is determining the great reproductive success of the lynxes.

Many private estates (Fincas), with thousands of hectares of extension, have joined the WWF project and in their territories the lynxes are free to roam and reproduce in peace.

In some of these estates some private organizations, in concert with the WWF, follow the animals, protect them and have also built paid photographic hides which allow, in absolute safety and respect for the animals, with a little luck, to observe them and shoot them freely. Naturally, the proceeds from the sheds go in part to support the reintroduction project.

I spent four days in some of these hides and I was enough lucky to observe two Iberian lynx females on three occasions, but only once did a specimen come to drink in the pool of water in front of my hide and let observe and shoot for a few minutes. On the other hand, with animals in the wild, nothing is taken for granted and sometimes you spend whole days waiting without seeing anything that you expect. On this occasion, the long waits were in any case fruitful, as the puddles of water placed in front of my hide, in a moment of great heat and drought, attracted many other animals and I had the opportunity to take many photos: adult partridges and chicks, green woodpeckers, a lot of rabbits, hoopoes, crested larks, wild pigeons and also the beautiful Pin-tailed sandgrouse.

The two Iberian females lynx that we saw this year are mother and daughter and they reproduced giving birth together four cubs that they raised in an abandoned barn and I was very lucky to film it, even if far away, the first outdoor outing of one of the two females with three puppies and I must say that it was a great emotion to see these three "kitties" jumping around their mother to discover their world.

A conservation project that is proving to be a great success, in the hope that the goal of 4,000 specimens will be reached sooner than expected.