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Four cubs are born from the lynx that lost a leg in an accident and drowned in an irrigation pond

2022-05-12T12:51:25.134Z


In Albacete only the dead specimen and a female lived, whose litter now opens an opportunity to establish a reproductive nucleus of the species in the region


Albacete has recovered the hope of having a breeding nucleus of lynx after the setback of losing

Lucero

, the only male specimen in the region, who drowned in an irrigation pond on February 13.

Her partner,

Quastellana

, a free-born female who settled in the region last year, gave birth to four cubs on March 15 that can already be seen running around her mother.

Miguel Fajardo, provincial coordinator of the body of environmental agents of Albacete, explains that they were able to record the first images of the puppies on May 6.

"It's amazing that after what happened to the lynx, we can now see this scene," he says.

The agent who discovered

Lucero 's body

He cannot forget the impact it caused him, because they had checked the irrigation pond and they still cannot explain how the feline was able to access it.

Lucero

was a true survivor: he survived a lasso-type trap, which left him neurological injuries, and a hit-and-run in 2019 that caused the amputation of his left front leg.

This disability meant that he was chosen to be the partner of

Quastellana ―

the only lynx specimen in the region that had arrived naturally – when the Ministry of Sustainable Development of Castilla-La Mancha asked the captive breeding program to send a male to try to create a reproductive nucleus in the region.

To

Lucero

, who had been living in the captive breeding center of La Olivilla (Jaén) for four years after the amputation of his leg, was offered the opportunity to return to nature in a quiet place, where there was no possibility of clashes with other territorial males.

But after three months he ran into the irrigation pond.

Lucero in Albacete before he died.

Lucero

was born in 2015 in captivity, in the center of Olivilla (Jaén).

That same year he was released in the Montes de Toledo ― he was number 23 of those released in Castilla-La Mancha and number 100 in Spain―.

There he lived for four years and fathered 21 cubs distributed in eight litters, to which must be added the new four pups.

In 2021, 208 puppies were born in the wild in Castilla-La Mancha, which raised the total lynx population to 473 individuals distributed in three nuclei: Montes de Toledo, eastern Sierra Morena and western Sierra Morena.

The Iberian lynx once had only about 100 individuals and now the population is about 1,100 individuals in the wild, although it is still in danger of extinction.

The advantage of the area where

Quastellana

has settled is the abundance of rabbits, the main component of their diet.

Some abandoned ornamental stone quarries serve as a refuge.

Lucero

also got used to the place where he met the female two days after being released without any problem.

Although the origin of

Quastellana

is not known , it is assumed that he may have been born in Ciudad Real, Jaén or Toledo.

Now almost every step she takes is known thanks to a tracking device that environmental agents placed on her when they verified that she had settled in the area, which has made it possible to know that she was pregnant and to film the offspring.

The pair of lynxes in the quarry where they lived.

Fajardo explains that they have intervened so that the female does not give birth near the regional road from Hellín to Almansa, very dangerous due to the speed that vehicles reach on the straights.

“Especially for the puppies”, he specifies.

Accidents are the main cause of death of the species.

They took her away from the area leaving food in areas out of danger, and they succeeded.

Now they are waiting for him to start hunting with the cubs.

At the moment, she "takes the rabbits that we offer her," says Fajardo.

They knew that he had given birth to the litter when he saw her very thin, but until May, when the puppies were seen, they did not know if they had survived or not.

"The surprising thing about everything that has happened here is that it has happened by chance, I had not planned to create a breeding group," says the environmental agent.

The pain they felt when Lucero was discovered drowned is somewhat mitigated by the new births.


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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-05-12

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