Not long ago, conservationists decided to reintroduce the Iberian Lynx back into the province of Granada and accordingly five were released in the mountain lands in the North.

However, two of them have already been killed. The second fatality was knocked down and killed by a car last Sunday in the El Chaparral area of Albolote. Prior to this, on the 27th of December last year, in the Sierra Arana area, near Iznalloz the first of the five was attacked and killed by dogs. This occurred only a week and a half after they were released.

The five lynx had been reared and prepared for released by the Plan de Recuperación del Lince Ibérico en Andalucía and by Life Lynx Connect, but within such a short period of time 40% have been killed.

Nevertheless, Life Lynx Connect considers that this sort of attrition is “habitual” when reintroducing species back into what was their natural habitat, especially when you consider how young these five specimens were.

It’s also difficult to track them using the GPS locators on their collars, as they tend to come off, which is the case of one of the remaining three. Perhaps because they are so young the collars have to be relatively loose to allow for growth.

So when are they going to release more? There is no set date because the programme, which began in 2015, is designed to last for 15 years, meaning that by 2030 the last ones will have been released. The hope is that by then there will be ‘several nucleus’ with a total of up to 30 territorial females, representing 20% of the projected population of up to 150 specimens, if all goes well.

Patience is the key.

(News: Sierra Arana, Iznalloz, Montes, Granada, Andalucia)