Species profile
Lynx pardinus
Iberian lynx
This is a curated published estimate, not a live census. Estimates may refer to mature individuals, wild individuals or a documented range and are not directly comparable between species.
NT · Near Threatened — Near Threatened — likely to become at risk soon
About this species
Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) is part of the curated SpeciesWatch catalogue and is classified as Near Threatened. The Iberian lynx is one of conservation's greatest comebacks: from fewer than 100 individuals in 2002, the population has grown into the thousands thanks to captive breeding and rabbit recovery. Its recorded population direction is increasing. That is encouraging, but it does not remove continuing pressures or make every population secure.
Habitat, behaviour and ecological role
This profile associates the species with terrestrial, scrubland. These labels summarise environments used during different stages of its life rather than drawing an exact range boundary. The lynx depends almost entirely on the European rabbit — when rabbit diseases wiped out its prey, the cat nearly vanished with it. Its anatomy and behaviour are responses to those environments, while movement can connect distant places requiring different forms of management.
Why this species is at risk
Its ear tufts and facial ruff act like a parabolic dish, helping the lynx hear a rabbit moving under dry grass before it pounces. The catalogue records 3 principal pressures for this profile: Rabbit population decline, Road mortality, Disease. They should not be treated as isolated causes. Habitat change, exploitation, pollution, disease and climate stress can reinforce one another, while the importance of each pressure varies between regions and through time.
Conservation outlook
Biosecurity, health surveillance and careful management of small populations help contain risks that can spread rapidly. Actions need long-term monitoring and revision as evidence changes; a positive intervention in one place does not by itself represent recovery across the species.
Editorial review: 2026-08-21
Threat factors
Known occurrences
Dots are georeferenced occurrence records from OBIS (marine) and GBIF (global), not individual animals and not a complete range map. Up to 500 recent API results are cached; the profile renders at most 500 points.
Loading occurrences…
Listen to this species
Vega de Toledo (near Toledo), Toledo, Castilla-La Mancha · 0:39 · https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/