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At the start of the 21st century, Spain’s once-abundant lynx population was on the verge of extinction, decimated by a combination of habitat loss, a decline in its main prey, hunting, and road accidents.
After decades of conservation work, the Iberian lynx has made a remarkable recovery, and a new initiative is using a high-tech system to protect the wild cat from one of its deadliest enemies: road traffic.
“In 2001, there were less than 50 mature individuals in the wild, distributed over two populations,” explains Dr Urs Breitenmoser, a carnivore ecologist and former senior scientist at the University of Bern, who co-chairs the Cat Specialist Group at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
By 2022, that number soared to 648, according to IUCN and it estimates the population of young and mature lynx to now be more than 2,000.
The turnaround is the result of a €100M ($112 million) conservation project — funded by the EU and the Spanish government — that has involved conservationist groups, as well as national and regional authorities across southern Spain.
Conservation strategies such as restocking populations of its main prey, rabbits, and restoring habitats, for example by converting pine plantations back to their original scrubland, have paid off and in June this year, the IUCN upgraded the status of the Iberian lynx from endangered to vulnerable. “For a relatively large carnivore, it is an incredible speed of recovery,” says Breitenmoser.
Sound and light
Yet, the IUCN acknowledges that the Iberian lynx remains threatened. It’s highly dependent on wild rabbits for food, which are particularly vulnerable to viruses. Poaching continues to be a threat, as does climate change, which is affecting lynx habitats, and road safety still is an issue.
To help with dispersion, lynx have territories of up to 20 square kilometers — although it can vary greatly — which Breitenmoser describes as “clever trick of nature to avoid inbreeding.” But being able to range freely throughout often requires crossing busy roads.
In the 1980s, roadkill played a key role in lynx mortality in the Doñana area (a prominent spot for the Iberian lynx) accounting for almost 17% of deaths. To tackle this issue, in the early 2000s, conservation programs introduced safety measures, installing fencing and underpasses that provide a safe way for lynx to walk between habitats without having to cross any roads.
Between 2006 and 2011, roadkill, accounted for 6.6% of the deaths in Sierra Morena and 8.6% in Doñana. That may not sound like much, but Breitenmoser explains that given that lynx populations were critically endangered at the time, the impact was significant.
“Twenty years ago, each roadkill was a real catastrophe. Even if you were to say that one lynx or two lynx are not important, in this situation, each individual was important,” Breitenmoser says.
Even as the species recovers, preventing roadkill is a priority and a project run by the regional government of Andalusia is using “virtual fences” to protect lynx from traffic. Sensors are placed 50 meters apart at the side of key roads, detecting when an animal is in the vicinity and warning them away when cars approach, explains Francisco Javier Salcedo Ortiz, coordinator of the LIFE Lynx-Connect project. “The sensors also activate once they detect the cars’ headlights, warning the animals with sound and light signals to not to cross,” he says.
In Jaén, Andalusia, 4.5 kilometers of virtual fences were installed along a main road in 2022 and in Granada, both physical and virtual fences are being installed on a 20-kilometer stretch.
The project is also having an impact on drivers, who often slow down when the sound and light alarms are triggered. “We have definitely noticed that there has been a reduction in the speed of drivers when the device is activated,” says Marcos López-Parra, who works as a lynx recovery plan technician for the regional government in Andalusia. “We are reducing the risk of collision.”
Similar technology has been used in central Italy to protect the Marsican Brown bear from road traffic, with the addition of infrared sensors and thermic cameras to detect animals’ presence beside roads, before sending an audible alert to drivers to slow down. The organization behind the initiative claims that it was nearly 100% effective.
Ortiz says that in a five-year timeframe, almost €4.5 million ($5 million) will be spent on improving habitats and nearly €2.9 million ($3.2 million) on boosting connectivity, including virtual fences.
The hope is that helping lynx to safely cross roads will increase encounters between different populations, which could benefit the cats in Andalusia, nearby Extremadura and even neighboring Portugal. Breitenmoser says connectivity between neighboring populations is essential for maintaining “the genetic and demographic health of a large population.”
There are some even more inventive technologies in development. Scientists from Spain’s University of Córdoba are leveraging the chemical signals used by lynx during breeding season to create artificial scent trails that could connect different populations via underpasses.
The first year of the project focused on completing analyses at a molecular level and the researchers are now experimenting in the field. The final task will be creating a scent corridor and checking if the cats follow it. The study is planned to be completed by September 2025.
“It’s still in an initial stage, but it’s an interesting alternative as it can be cheaper than what has been typically done on highways and can help lynx cross safely underneath roads,” says Ortiz.
Conservationists say that efforts to help the lynx will benefit other wildlife in the region. “It (the lynx) plays a very important ecological role by influencing a lot of other species, not only the rabbit population that it eats from, but also meso-predators like foxes,” Breitenmoser explains. “It may provide some services to other large carnivores like the imperial eagle,” which also relies on wild rabbit populations to survive, he adds.
Innovation aside, for Ortiz the future of the Iberian lynx depends on co-operation. “The success of a project is defined by the ability to build something through the sum of many parts,” he says. “We must involve all sorts of sectors, including hunters, landowners, conservationists and more.”