Extinction Fears Stalk the Big Wild Cats of Spain

It is the biggest wild cat left in western Europe, but according to a group of experts meeting in emergency session yesterday, the elusive Iberian lynx may soon disappear for good.

Four years ago, official estimates of the number of wild examples of this European relative of the lion and tiger spoke of 1,000 animals.

At a recent three-day conference in the southern Spanish town of Andujar, experts agreed there were probably now fewer than 200 left.

With its home territory under threat from construction projects, hunters and pesticides, many experts claimed the lynx was set to disappear from the wild within a few decades.

"All the alarm signals are on red. The situation is very grave," admitted Miguel Aymerich, from Spain's environment ministry.

Environmentalists said urgent measures had to be taken over the next two to three years or the species would be beyond salvation within a decade.

"That is the time available to save the Iberian lynx or to permit for the first time in several centuries the extinction of a big cat species in the world," said Theo Oberhuber of the Ecologists in Action environmental group.

At the beginning of the 20th century there were estimated to be 100,000 lynx running wild in Spain and Portugal.

In the last few years, the animal has all but disappeared from an area near Madrid known as the Montes de Toledo - where there were said to be 100 animals five years ago - and from its habitats in Portugal.

That effectively leaves its main refuges as the vast but unfenced Donana nature park in south-west Spain and the area around Andujar itself.

Attempts at rearing the lynx in captivity have so far failed. The reasons are simple.

The three animals being kept at a special centre in Jerez zoo in southern Spain are female.

Another breeding centre opened in Donana in 1992 also failed to obtain a male to mate with four captured females.

Up to four out of every five cubs born in the wild fall foul of hunters or cars.

Reports of dead lynxes found on roadsides in southern Spain or Portugal come in sometimes weekly.

The catastrophic decline in numbers of the Iberian lynx has also been blamed on a lack of rabbits, their main prey.

A virus which effectively prevents many adults from breeding is also said to be affecting the lynx population.

All four breeding females believed to be in Donana are believed to be infected.

The Spanish government has pledged £1 million a year over the next five years to save the lynx.