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ARCHIVED - Iberian lynx arrive at their new Lorca home
Over the next decade, 15 female lynx will be settled in this corner of Spain
Two females and one male Iberian lynx were settled into their new enclosures in the Lorca countryside on Thursday March 2, which they will call home for around a month and a half until they are released to explore the wider reaches of the municipality.
This year, eight animals will be moved to Lorca with the ultimate aim of introducing 15 breeding females to southeastern Spain over the next decade in a fight to protect the threatened species.
Tico and Taulla, a breeding pair, have been settled in one enclosure while Torrealvilla is in the other, awaiting the arrival of her mate from Portugal early next week.
According to regional president and Environment Minister Fernando López Miras, the plan for 2023 is to create an ecological corridor between Murcia, Andalucia and Castilla-La Mancha where the lynx can roam freely and expand their territories.
All of the animals are less than a year old and have come from smaller reserves with a similar ecosystem to Lorca, so they are already adept at hunting rabbit, the main food source of the lynx.
In fact, members of the Life LynxConnect project watched on in delight as, minutes after he was released, Tico began to chase the wildlife while Taulla took a more relaxed approach and sauntered off to explore her new home.
"The lynx is a predatory animal but it does not generate a social conflict," Javier Salcedo, head of the Life project, explained. "What is to be expected, if all goes well, is that next year these couples will be able to reproduce."
Lynxes reach their sexual maturity at two or three years of age.
"The key to this territory is the abundance of rabbits, two for every hectare, and the dispersion of the populations. There is social acceptance and it is a territory with few threats, although zero risk does not exist."
Road traffic remains the single biggest threat to this wild cat and in the last year and a half, around 100 of the animals have been killed by vehicles.
Once the four current residents are given free rein of the land, two other pairs will take their place in the enclosures, something which is expected to happen this summer.
Image: @LifeLynxconnect on Twitter
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