A wildlife park has welcomed two stunning big cats in what keepers have described as a \u201chuge moment\u201d.<\/p>\n
Port Lympne Hotel & Reserve, home to a safari experience, has seen the arrival of two Lynx cubs at its attraction near Hythe.<\/p>\n
Port Lympne has welcomed the arrival of two Lynx cubs. Pictures: Port Lympne<\/p>\n
The babies, a pair of Northern lynx cubs, were born to parents Arya and Levis.<\/p>\n
A statement released by keepers read: \u201cAfter Arya gave birth, we spotted our first cub emerge, and just when we thought there was only one a second playful sibling appeared.<\/p>\n
\u201cFollowing their first health check, we\u2019re delighted to share we have one male and one female – a perfect little lynx sibling duo.<\/p>\n
\u201dThis is a huge moment for our lynx family and for conservation efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to National Geographic, Northern lynx, a sub-species of the Eurasian lynx, are most often found in the forests of Russia, central Asia and parts of western Europe.<\/p>\n
The cubs will no doubt be a favourite among visitors to the park<\/p>\n
They are the third largest predator in Europe after wolves and brown bears.<\/p>\n
Strict carnivores, they feed on deer, hares, foxes and rabbits using their long legs and paws to catch prey.<\/p>\n
They also have a short black tipped tail while during the winter their fur is thick and pale in colour, compared to the summer when it thins and becomes a darker ginger to maintain camouflage.<\/p>\n
However, the WWF admits there are fears lynx may soon become the first cat species to become extinct for at least 2,000 years.<\/p>\n
Arya and one of her cubs<\/p>\n
The charity says illegal hunting, decreasing prey, getting struck by vehicles, plus habitat loss and degradation are contributing to the species\u2019s decline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A wildlife park has welcomed two stunning big cats in what keepers have described as a \u201chuge moment\u201d.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3847],"tags":[933,728,2418,49585,495,70,16,15,1717],"class_list":{"0":"post-296405","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-folkestone","11":"tag-hythe","12":"tag-kent","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114926361317986996","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}