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In a flash, V\u00edrgula bolts from a box and bounds down the hill to freedom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With her distinctive pointy ears and dotted brown coat, the Iberian lynx cuts a dashing sight.<\/p>\n
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The one-year-old female was released on Los Mil Quinientos – a remote country estate in Extremadura in Spain\u2019s far west – on Monday. Her first taste of the wild after having been born in captivity as part of a breeding programme to restore her species.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That rewilding scheme, which began 20 years ago, closes next year. So the days of lynx releases like V\u00edrgula\u2019s are numbered.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Saving a species facing extinction<\/p>\n
At the turn of this century, the Iberian lynx was on the edge of extinction in Iberia, its numbers decimated by relentless hunting<\/strong><\/a> and diseases ravaging its favourite foodstuff: the rabbit.<\/p>\n With less than 100 individuals known to be alive, lynx pardinus was about to share the fate of the dodo.\u00a0<\/p>\n So began LIFE Lynx Connect, a multi-million euro project backed by the European Union, the Spanish and Portuguese governments, regional authorities and private companies, which has saved this wild cat.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since 2005, lynx have been reared in captivity then released into the wild in areas stocked with rabbits across southern Spain and Portugal<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Initially seen as a pest, conservationists convinced rural communities and hunters that the lynx was actually an asset to the countryside.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lynx numbers reached 2,021 according to a 2023 census. From being classed as at risk of extinction, it is now vulnerable, according to an IUCN<\/strong><\/a> update from 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now the lynx faces an uncertain future<\/p>\n With the LIFE Lynx Connect project coming to an end in 2026, this most photogenic feline faces an uncertain future.<\/p>\n Rewilding of the carnivorous wild cat has met with resistance in Catalonia, Aragon and parts of Castilla y Leon in northern Spain.<\/p>\n Farmers in Zamora, a region famous for its wolf population, do not welcome another predator even though the lynx never kills livestock.<\/p>\n In Aragon, in eastern Spain, the conservative People\u2019s Party rules in conjunction with the hard-right Vox party<\/strong><\/a>, which opposes the return of the lynx.<\/p>\n Farmers in Catalonia staged a demonstration with their tractors in February and forced the Catalan regional government to drop plans to bring back the lynx.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite a plague of rabbits devouring crops in agricultural areas like Lleida, farmers believe the lynx would make things worse, even though the rabbit is the feline\u2019s favourite dinner.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mar Ariza, a 27-year-old farmer from Revolta Pagesa, points to a 2024 study<\/strong><\/a> in the Journal for Nature Conservation, which found that lynx actually increase rabbit populations in some areas.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The report said lynx act as \u2018natural gamekeepers\u2019 – preying on weaker or younger rabbits<\/strong><\/a> but not reducing the overall rabbit population. The same study found that lynx reduce red fox, stone marten and other predators.\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite the opposition to rewilding<\/strong><\/a> the feline, Maria Jes\u00fas Palacios, who leads lynx conservation programmes in Extremadura, believes the feline\u2019s future is assured.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe have managed to make hunters see that the lynx helps them because it is a super predator and it helps to regulate the countryside by eliminating any other rivals,\u201d she told Euronews Green.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we started this project they did not believe us. But they have been able to see with their own eyes that this is a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n Palacios said she believed that opposition among farmers<\/strong><\/a> in parts of Spain would wane and said regional authorities would back conservation projects in the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n Felipe Garc\u00eda works for regional authorities in Extremadura protecting the lynx but at weekends indulges his hobby of hunting. He shows off his photographs of deer and rabbit hunts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think that it is good that hunters can now see that the lynx can be good for the countryside and is not a pest. It kills off foxes and other rivals who would prey on rabbits,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Once hunted for money, now lynx live in luxury<\/p>\n At the turn of the 20th century, Spanish hunters could earn nearly 4 pesetas (roughly enough to buy 16kg of bread) for every lynx they killed, as the animal was officially regarded as a pest.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now the animal lives in some of the most exclusive estates in rural Spain which are run for hunting. The feline is welcomed by their well-off hosts because it kills rival predators like foxes<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n An 8,000-hectare estate in Valencia de las Torres, in the south of Extremadura, has about 60 lynx, one of the largest communities in Spain.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The estate<\/strong><\/a> is the property of Sheik Mansour, the owner of Manchester City football club, and it is a paradise for the lynx as it is teeming with rabbits.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n On La Encomienda estate – about an hour’s drive away from Los Mil Quinientos – we waited at the top of a hill looking for lynx.\u00a0<\/p>\n Suddenly the rural agent\u2019s radio went Beep!, beep!, beep! A lynx, wearing an electronic collar as many of the animals are tracked, was close.\u00a0<\/p>\n Quietar, a three-year-old female, suddenly popped up in front of us, looking almost like a large pet cat, then dashed away.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Steve Cracknell, a rewilding expert and author of The Improbable Rewilding of the Pyrenees, says that despite resistance to bringing back the lynx, the animal will cross regional borders of its own accord.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis has been a great success. It was facing extinction and now it has reached a population of 2,000. And it has changed attitudes towards the lynx<\/strong><\/a>,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n Conservationists believe that attitudes not just towards the lynx but also towards domesticated animals have fundamentally changed in Spain in recent decades.<\/p>\nADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\nADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\nADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\nADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\nADVERTISEMENTWhat does the future hold for the Iberian lynx?<\/p>\n