The Iberian lynx came close to disappearing entirely between the late 1980s and the early 2000s. Two disease outbreaks had devastated its primary food source, the European rabbit, across most of the Iberian Peninsula. By 2001, the lynx population had fallen to 62 mature adults, with 25 breeding females, confined to two isolated areas in southern Spain.
For more than a million years, the lynx had served as the main predator in Mediterranean scrubland ecosystems. Its diet consisted almost entirely of rabbits. But its presence also suppressed the populations of smaller predators such as foxes, mongooses, genets, and feral cats. When the lynx declined, those mid-sized predators multiplied unchecked and consumed rabbits faster than they could reproduce. The ecological system stalled, leaving no natural mechanism to restore balance.
The rabbit collapse began in the 1950s with the arrival of the myxoma virus in Spain, which struck rabbit populations with severe force. A second disease, rabbit hemorrhagic disease, arrived in 1989 through the domestic rabbit trade and caused further losses. Without rabbits, lynx numbers fell sharply. Roads and forestry plantations fragmented the remaining population into small groups that could not interbreed easily.
In the early 2000s, the European Union and the Spanish government launched a recovery effort with funding of around 100 million euros. The immediate goal was to prevent the Iberian lynx from becoming the first feline species to go extinct in modern times. Captive breeding centers were established, and geneticists carefully managed pairings using the surviving founder animals. The breeding program faced an early challenge when researchers observed that in many litters, a dominant cub attacked and killed its sibling around 44 days of age, when kittens began shifting from milk to meat. Staff monitored the animals closely and separated cubs when necessary.
The landscape also required preparation before any lynx could be released. Conservationists built artificial rabbit warrens using wooden pallets and earth, creating shelter where rabbits could not dig naturally. More than 100,000 rabbits were released into these protected sites. To reduce losses to foxes, meat baits containing a nausea-inducing compound were placed near release areas. Foxes that ate the bait became ill and learned to avoid the vanilla scent used in the bait. When vanilla-scented rabbits appeared in the area, many foxes refused to hunt them.
Roads posed a major threat to lynx movement. Wildlife underpasses were built beneath highways, and fencing with angled extensions was installed to guide lynx toward safe crossings. The first captive-bred lynx were released at scale in 2010. Tracking data showed the animals dispersing widely, covering up to 50 kilometers in their opening weeks as they searched for suitable territory.
Once established, the lynx resumed their historical role. Camera traps recorded foxes and mongooses killed but left uneaten inside lynx territories. This behavior reduced competition for rabbits rather than supplementing the lynx diet. In reintroduction zones, fox and mongoose numbers fell by roughly 80 percent within two years. The total pressure on rabbit populations from all predators combined dropped by more than half, despite the lynx itself consuming one rabbit per day. The presence of a single specialist predator reduced the combined effect of many generalist predators.
This outcome reshaped the relationship between the lynx and rural landowners. For decades, the cat had been treated as a competitor by hunting estates and private landholders, who sometimes used traps and poison baits intended for foxes that also killed lynx. Data from reintroduction areas showed that valleys with resident lynx produced more rabbits and red-legged partridges than those without. As this became clear, more than 200 private landowners signed conservation agreements covering over 150,000 hectares, allowing lynx monitoring and protection on their property.
The population responded. In 2015, the species was reclassified from critically endangered to endangered. By 2020, the total count exceeded 1,000 animals, with more than 400 cubs born in the wild each year. Lynx also began moving into regions where they had not been seen for decades, including parts of central Spain, Portugal, and working olive farmlands. This expansion was unexpected, as the species had been assumed to require undisturbed wilderness.
By 2024, the population had grown to 2,401 individuals, including 470 breeding females. Occupied territory expanded from 449 square kilometers to more than 3,300 square kilometers. That year, the International Union for Conservation of Nature moved the species from endangered to vulnerable.
The recovery faced continuing challenges. New strains of rabbit hemorrhagic disease periodically reduced rabbit numbers, and climate change has brought longer, drier summers across the peninsula. Researchers also documented an unusual adaptation to these conditions. Between 2020 and 2025, camera traps recorded five female lynx submerging freshly killed rabbits in water troughs before carrying them to their cubs. A study published in the journal Ecology in 2026 suggested the behavior was a method for providing hydration to cubs during the transition from milk to solid food. This was noted as a behavior not previously documented in wild cats.
The European rabbit remains classified as more threatened than the lynx, meaning the predator has recovered while its prey has not fully kept pace. The project’s long-term effect, however, has been to demonstrate how reintroducing a single apex predator can restore function to a degraded ecosystem.
