{"id":537366,"date":"2025-10-30T10:12:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T10:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/537366\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T10:12:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T10:12:15","slug":"spanish-photographer-captures-worlds-first-ever-white-iberian-lynx-on-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/537366\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish photographer captures world&#8217;s first ever white Iberian Lynx on camera"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The white ghost of the Mediterranean forest. This is how \u00c1ngel Hidalgo, an amateur nature photographer, has described his latest find while reviewing the images from one of his photo-trapping cameras, placed in the depths of one of Ja\u00e9n&#8217;s mountain ranges in southern Spain. <\/p>\n<p>Hidalgo has managed to record an Iberian lynx with leucism, a genetic condition that causes a partial or total lack of pigmentation in its skin, although not in the eyes, as would occur in the case of albino animals. <\/p>\n<p>According to local media &#8216;Ahora Ja\u00e9n&#8217;, this unprecedented discovery took place on 22 October in the province of Ja\u00e9n.<\/p>\n<p>The place where this specimen of &#8216;Lynx pardinus&#8217; has been recorded in the wild, as attested by the absence of a tracking collar, is kept secret. The Iberian lynx, despite the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/green\/2025\/05\/04\/saved-from-extinction-the-iberian-lynx-now-faces-an-uncertain-future-in-spain\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>conservation efforts<\/strong> <\/a>of the Spanish and Portuguese authorities, is still listed as &#8220;vulnerable&#8221; by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.<\/p>\n<p>The Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition estimates that the animal&#8217;s population exceeded 2,000 in 2023, spread across the two countries of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/green\/2025\/09\/25\/why-portugal-and-spain-are-the-most-vulnerable-european-countries-to-blackouts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Iberian Peninsula<\/strong><\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The animals have spread to geographical areas such as Sierra Morena, the Montes de Toledo, the Spanish-Portuguese Guadiana basin and Do\u00f1ana, as well as other places where they are being reintroduced that would have been unthinkable until a few years ago, such as the Sierra Palentina.<\/p>\n<p>Endemic only to this region, this big cat is essential for the ecosystems of the Mediterranean landscape and its food chain, as it is a predator of rabbits, its main source of food. <\/p>\n<p>If it were to disappear, it would overpopulate the next level up in the chain and unbalance the whole, given the lack of competition between the two species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The white ghost of the Mediterranean forest. This is how \u00c1ngel Hidalgo, an amateur nature photographer, has described&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[12255,4021,4020,3928,4022,12016,77,50932,36563,16,15,1717],"class_list":{"0":"post-537366","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-andalusia","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-conservation","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-endangered-species","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-iberia","16":"tag-iberian-lynx","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115462585944593821","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537366","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=537366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}