The Iberian lynx mostly depends on wild rabbits to feed, but it will also eat ducks, young deer and partridges if rabbit densities are low. While an adult lynx needs about one rabbit a day, a mother raising her young needs to catch about 3.
The conservation effort taken to prevent the Iberian Lynx’s extinction has paid out, and from a shrinking population of less than 100 individuals in 2002, now 404 cats live in the Mediterranean forests of the Iberian Peninsula. A new ambitious conservation project, LIFE Iberlince, is recovering some of the lynx’s lost territories in Spain and Portugal.
The Mediterranean forests that the Iberian lynx calls home are some of the most biodiverse ecosystems in Europe. But the continent’s most endangered cat enjoys one meal above all others - rabbit.
A superb, stealthy hunter, the lynx’s specialty is catching rabbits, which account for up to 90% of its diet. The lynx is not the only predator that feasts on rabbits, which are the base of the food chain in these forests. In fact, more than 30 species do. And in recent decades, diseases have devastated rabbit populations-intensifying competition.
3 окт 2024
