With its pretty cream-colored tabby coat, its large triangular ears topped with a tuft of black hair, its short tail and its long legs, the lynx is most recognizable among the wild felines that inhabit the forests of eastern Europe. France.
But at night, all cats are gray.
When dusk comes, the roads turn into mortal danger for this protected and fragile species.
Over the past two weeks, the Athénas center, which specializes in collecting and caring for wildlife, claims that five lynxes have been killed in the Jura after collisions with cars.
When we know that France has only about 150 individuals, it is almost 4% of the total population of these felines which suddenly disappeared!
However, the animal appears in France on the red list of endangered species.
These collisions occur at a particular time of the year.
"We are at the end of the rutting season and the young lynxes generally go dispersing to find new territory", explains Olivier Guder, vice-president of the environmental association Ferus and coordinator of the lynx file.
Signal their presence or limit the speed?
"Young people who go into dispersal have a more dangerous life because they cross more roads than in normal times," explains Athénas director Gilles Moyne.
In this rutting season, not only young people are mobile, but adults too.
The twilight behavior of the species exposes it all the more now that we are in a period of curfew.
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The Athénas center has “identified” for several years “accident-prone zones” in the forest sectors where the animal evolves.
To avoid finding the corpses of felines at the side of the roads or having to euthanize lynxes having had their spines broken by a bumper, the association asks the local elected officials concerned by these accidents "the installation of panels dedicated to lynxes.
"When leaving their town" informing motorists that they are entering a sector where the animal can evolve ".
"We invite the municipalities interested in this approach to get closer to us to support them and position these panels in the best place", explains Gilles Moyne.
Each year in Franche-Comté, at least ten individuals are victims of collisions or poaching.
Install signs announcing the presence of the long-eared feline?
"Good idea, but do all drivers really respect the signs warning of the presence of wildlife on the road," asks Olivier Guder.
Reducing the speed limit in the area concerned and installing a radar there, yes, that would have an effect.
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Asked about these repeated deaths in recent weeks, the French Biodiversity Office (OFB) says that its agents in the field are leading the investigation.
If associations for the protection of wildlife are also mobilized on the issue, it is because the feline with the spotted coat is a weakened species in France.
Reappeared at the end of the 1970s after almost a century of absence, it first colonized the Jura massif from populations reintroduced into Switzerland.
"It is mainly found in the Jura, Doubs and Ain and there are probably around fifteen in the north of the Alps," says Olivier Guder.
But in the Vosges, there are only a few individuals left.
Because of poaching, the lynx population, which in the 2000s numbered twenty-five or thirty, has practically disappeared.
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