Our Earthly Cousins #4

If in 1980 you visited the areas marked on this map in green in Spain or Portugal ...

... you may have been lucky enough to spot this animal:

The Iberian lynx is the world's most threatened species of cat, and it is the most threatened carnivore in Europe. By 2003, its range was down to:

This lynx was distributed over the entire Iberian Peninsula as recently as the mid nineteenth century. Six years ago, in March 2005, it was estimated that the number of surviving Iberian lynx was as few as 100, down from about 400 in 2000 and from 4,000 in 1960.

In addition to falling prey to feral dogs, to human poaching and poisoning, and to collisions with our automobiles, the Iberian lynx has lost out to to infrastructure improvement and urban and resort development. It wants habitats with a diversity of trees, so tree monocultivation, which serves to break the lynx's distribution area, has harmed it. It eats rabbits, which diseases such as myxomatosis and hemorrhagic pneumonia have ravaged.

As a result, the Iberian lynx is critically endangered. It and its habitat are fully protected, and it is no longer legally hunted.

SOS Lynx is a conservation charity based in Portugal, working to prevent the extinction of the Iberian Lynx. Its aim is to stop the declining of the Iberian Lynx and other lynx species.