When at the end of winter and the beginning of spring the snow still covers Sweden in a thick pack, the lynx hunting season starts on 1 March. Hunters pick up the tracks of a lynx in the snow. Hunting dogs then follow the scent of the big cat.
When the lynx comes into view, the animal is hunted until it takes refuge in a tree, exhausted. The hunters, meanwhile, are drinking coffee in a warm car and follow their dogs via a GPS signal or even with a camera that one of the dogs carries with him. If the GPS signal remains in one place for a while, the hunters know that the lynx has nowhere to go. They drive in that direction and walk the last few meters.
A tired lynx sits on a high branch, hissing and snarling at his attackers. The men aim and shoot the lynx at point blank range, which falls from the tree. They skin the big cat and cut off its head. The skin is used to make a rug and the head can be nicely mounted on the living room wall.
Pregnant females shot
This hunting season – the month of March – 201 lynxes can be shot in Sweden. Never before have there been so many in a population of 1400 cats, of which regarding eight hundred are adult animals. About a quarter of the fully grown lynxes, who also have to produce offspring, will not make it to the end of March.
Last year it turned out that several female lynxes had been shot who were already pregnant. At that time 86 permits were issued. In ten years, the number of lynxes has fallen by regarding three hundred in Sweden.
“This is trophy hunting, just for fun, because lynxes do virtually no damage by killing livestock,” says Magnus Orrebrant of the Swedish Carnivore Association, which promotes responsible wildlife management in Sweden. He explains that trophy hunters from abroad also come to Sweden in large numbers to shoot a lynx. He estimates that the costs for a permit, a guide, transport and accommodation are around 25,000 euros. “It’s the same people who kill lions in Africa.”
Reintroduction Programs
The lynx in Sweden belongs to the subspecies, the Eurasian lynx, of which there are still between 14,000 and 18,000 in the wild in Europe. They mainly find their habitat in Poland, in the Balkans, in the Carpathians and the Baltic States. The lynx is doing better, which was almost extinct in Europe in the nineteenth century.
Since the middle of the last century, reintroduction programs have been started to return the lynx to former habitats. The big cat with a length of up to 130 centimeters returned in Poland, Switzerland, Slovenia and Austria. Protective measures were also introduced everywhere.
In the Biotopwildpark in the German Anholter Schweiz, just across the border with the Gelderse Achterhoek, there are two adult lynxes that have had young for a few years. “When they are adults, they are released to the Polish West Pomerania, just behind Berlin,” says Patty Bijlsma of Biotop.
No Dutch cubs for the time being
The German wildlife park has already returned nine lynxes to nature. “We pay a lot of attention to where we put them out, so that there is no inbreeding. The association of zoos in Europe coordinates this, so that we know exactly which lynxes with which DNA are kept in captivity and where they can best be released back into the wild.”
The wild lynx is advancing from Poland to Germany. In February of this year, one was already spotted less than 20 kilometers from the Netherlands, on the German side of the border near Winterswijk. The lynx became extinct in the Netherlands at the end of the nineteenth century. Whether the big cat returns depends on several factors.
It may be a long time before the lynx settles permanently in the Netherlands and cubs are born here, says Lars Soerink of the organization Ark, which is committed to more wilderness in the Netherlands. Young males travel great distances in search of a new habitat, so there is a chance that one will pop up every now and then in the east of the country. Female lynxes are fairly stable, so it may take a while before they reach the Netherlands.
French wild cat is doomed to extinction
The best habitat is in the Veluwe with its extensive forests and sufficient prey animals, such as wild boars and deer. The only obstacle: the nature reserve is difficult to reach for the lynx due to the many roads, arable land, meadows and urban buildings around it. Nevertheless, the return of the lynx is certainly not excluded. Especially now that the first lynx has been spotted in the Belgian Ardennes following regarding three hundred years.
This lynx probably originated in France, where there is still a population of 120 to 150 cats in the wild. They are descendants of lynxes released in Switzerland in the last century. It is expected that, without human intervention, the French lynx is doomed to extinction once more.
The genetic diversity of the French lynx is low due to the high degree of inbreeding. The only solution is to catch lynxes in Poland, Germany or even further east and release them in France. But so far not much is being done to save this lynx population from extinction.
More success with the Iberian lynx
On the Iberian Peninsula, conservationists are active in saving the Iberian lynx, a subspecies that is almost half the size of the Eurasian lynx. By the turn of the millennium there were less than a hundred left in Spain.
In Portugal the subspecies was extinct. There were only two small populations that suffered from inbreeding. In twenty years we have worked with all our might to bring back the Iberian lynx. Now there are regarding three hundred in the wild in Portugal and more than 1500 in Spain in different habitats.
“New laws and regulations were coordinated between the two countries and breeding centers were established in Spain and Portugal,” explains Pedro Sarmento of the Institute for Nature Management and Forests (ICNF) in Portugal.
Too small gene pool
He has been working to protect the Iberian lynx for thirty years. “A sustainable population consists of regarding 5,000 lynx and it will take us another ten years to reach this crucial number,” he says over the phone. “This minimum is necessary because only 20 percent of cats reach sexual maturity.”
The main problem of the Iberian lynx is inbreeding. The current generation descends from a few ancestors. Breeding in both countries is coordinated by an institute, which uses DNA profiles of the cats to determine which lynxes can mate with each other and where the cubs are released when they reach adulthood. This is the best way to maintain genetic diversity.
Sarmento sees that there is inbreeding with a small gene pool because cubs are born with kidney failure, epilepsy and males with a testicle. In the wild, these cubs die quite quickly. Despite the small gene pool, the Iberian lynx does quite well.
Mess with the counts
Successes in the Iberian Peninsula and in Eastern Europe are being canceled out by problems with the French lynx population and the hunting policy in Sweden. Magnus Orrebrant: “Stockholm manipulates the data. According to the European Habitats Directive, only adult lynx may be shot. Sweden reports to Brussels that there are approximately 1400 lynxes and that the lower limit for a healthy population is around 870. But there are regarding 800 adult lynxes in Sweden that are sexually mature, the rest are young lynxes that should not be included in the count.”
According to EU guidelines, lynxes may only be shot if they prey on livestock or pose a threat to public safety. According to Orrebrant, neither is the case. “Only 51 sheep were killed by lynxes last year. That is almost nothing compared to the total number of sheep in Sweden.” He intends to start a complaint procedure with the European Commission because Sweden has provided incorrect data on the number of lynxes.
Little exchange with Finnish lynxes
His colleague from the Swedish nature conservation associations, Naturskyddsföreningen, Isak Isaksson expects the situation to be even worse. He estimates that on top of the number of hunting licenses to shoot lynx, another 10 percent is poached.
In addition, the Swedish lynx lives in isolation. A study that compared the lynx population in Finland with that of Sweden found that the Swedish cat gene pool is much worse off. Natural exchange between the two populations is rare, because lynx have difficulty reaching each other.
So there are plenty of concerns regarding the healthy survival of the lynx in Sweden. Nevertheless, trophy hunting is very popular. Swedish hunting associations are very powerful, Isaksson explains. “Three ministers of this right-wing government are hunters themselves. There is even a shooting club under the parliament building.”
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Spain’s endangered big cat is back, to the delight of tourists and farmers alike
The Iberian lynx has been saved from extinction thanks to a successful European repopulation programme. More and more tourists are heading into the Spanish mountains to see the big cat in the wild. Even the farmers are happy with the animal.
