Elusive, obscure, and eclipsed in popularity by their larger cousins, small cats are amazing, high-performance predators.
“She’s very close,” Germán Garrote whispers, pointing to a handheld receiver picking up Helena’s signal. Somewhere in this olive grove beside a busy highway in southern Spain, the Iberian lynx and her two cubs are probably watching us. If it weren’t for her radio collar, we’d never know that one of the world’s rarest cats is crouching among the neat rows of trees. At five years old Helena has learned to meld invisibly into the human landscape, even hiding with her newborns in a vacant house during a raucous Holy Week fiesta.
“Ten years ago we couldn’t imagine the lynx would be breeding in a habitat like this,” says Garrote, …show more content…
When Iberlince stepped in to rescue the lynx in 2002, fewer than a hundred of the cats were scattered throughout the Mediterranean scrubland, their numbers chipped away by hunting and a virus that nearly erased the region’s European rabbits, the lynx’s staple food. The lynx population was so depleted that it was suffering from dangerously low genetic diversity, making it vulnerable to disease and birth …show more content…
Four breeding centers and one zoo raised most of the cats, all of which were outfitted with tracking collars. Sixty percent of the reintroduced lynx have survived, and a few have surpassed expectations.
Two lynx made “a spectacular trip across the whole Iberian Peninsula,” each walking more than 1,500 miles to new territory, says biologist Miguel Simón, director of the reintroduction program. The team works closely with private landowners to earn their trust and persuade them to welcome lynx on their property. In 2012, when the population hit 313—about half of which were old enough to breed—the International Union for Conservation of Nature upgraded the lynx’s status from critically endangered to
“She’s very close,” Germán Garrote whispers, pointing to a handheld receiver picking up Helena’s signal. Somewhere in this olive grove beside a busy highway in southern Spain, the Iberian lynx and her two cubs are probably watching us. If it weren’t for her radio collar, we’d never know that one of the world’s rarest cats is crouching among the neat rows of trees. At five years old Helena has learned to meld invisibly into the human landscape, even hiding with her newborns in a vacant house during a raucous Holy Week fiesta.
“Ten years ago we couldn’t imagine the lynx would be breeding in a habitat like this,” says Garrote, …show more content…
When Iberlince stepped in to rescue the lynx in 2002, fewer than a hundred of the cats were scattered throughout the Mediterranean scrubland, their numbers chipped away by hunting and a virus that nearly erased the region’s European rabbits, the lynx’s staple food. The lynx population was so depleted that it was suffering from dangerously low genetic diversity, making it vulnerable to disease and birth …show more content…
Four breeding centers and one zoo raised most of the cats, all of which were outfitted with tracking collars. Sixty percent of the reintroduced lynx have survived, and a few have surpassed expectations.
Two lynx made “a spectacular trip across the whole Iberian Peninsula,” each walking more than 1,500 miles to new territory, says biologist Miguel Simón, director of the reintroduction program. The team works closely with private landowners to earn their trust and persuade them to welcome lynx on their property. In 2012, when the population hit 313—about half of which were old enough to breed—the International Union for Conservation of Nature upgraded the lynx’s status from critically endangered to