Lynx Conservation

In order to conserve a species, it is essential to understand it on a biological, environmental, and also ethological (ethology: science that studies animal behaviour). The techniques used by technical personnel in the project to gather information on lynx populations are:

Radio tracking

The lynx are tagged with a transmitter that is mounted on a collar weighing 200 g. The transmitter emits a (radio) signal at a pre-determined frequency, which is received by the technician's receiver. Currently, transmitters are being equipped with GPS satellite signals, which send information to the Terminal (mobile phone or portable computer), streamlining animal location work. Not all lynx are tagged with transmitters (radio signal), there are 10 in Sierra Morena (4 in Yeguas and 6 in Jandula) and 14 in Do§ana (as of November 2007). This technique allows researchers to locate the animals, find dens, know if they are moving or not, and even to quickly locate the carcasses of dead lynx, making it easier for them to determine the cause of death.

Camera trapping

When the presence of a lynx is suspected in a certain area, a camera trap device is installed. This consists of a camouflaged digital camera with a movement activated trigger, and a decoy or bait to bring the lynx close (a rabbit or a pigeon in a cage or the urine of another lynx). With this technique, photographed lynx can be identified by each animal's unique pattern of spots. It also allows researchers to see the appearance and state of health of the photographed animal, if it is sick, wounded, well fed, if it has cubs, etc.

Periodic checks

It is vital that we learn the health of the two lynx populations. This knowledge helps to prevent possible diseases from becoming epidemics, and allows us to know how healthy the lynx are. It also serves to get biological samples for scientific study, and to save them in gene banks. Individuals captured for the captive breeding programme are used for this purpose, or animals that are observed to have a problem and are captured for check up and treatment. This maximises the information gathering effort and minimises the handling of individual animals.

Creating Supplementary Feeding Enclosures (SFE)

When the rabbit presence in the countryside is low, this type of enclosure is built to release rabbits accessible to the lynx in the area. This tends to happen when rabbit diseases (myxomatosis and hemorrhagic viral disease or HVD) attack more intensively and in breeding season, when the rabbit populations are therefore diminished or are more vulnerable

Creating enclosures for reinforcement and reintroduction

There are plans to build four soft-release population reinforcement enclosures in Doñana, and two reintroduction enclosures in the area selected for that purpose. Enclosure prototypes have been designed, and they will be adapted depending on the experiences they have. Successful experiences with other carnivores have been taken into consideration when these prototypes were designed, due to lack of prior experience with the Iberian Lynx.