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2026 is off to a promising start for the European LIFE LynxConnect programme as a new breeding pair of cats has just been released into the Lorca highlands.

 

The latest youngsters to arrive in this new habitat are Weeka, a 9.4 kilo female, and Windows, an 8.9 kilo male, both from the El Acebuche Breeding Centre in Huelva.

 

Throughout the coming year, they’ll be joined by six more animals, three females and three males, from breeding centres in Spain and Portugal. All of them will be equipped with GPS collars for continuous monitoring.

 

Regional president Fernando López Miras described Tuesday February 17, release day, as “emotional” and stressed that, despite several setbacks, the reintroduction of the species so far proves that the Region of Murcia is now "a stable territory" for the lynx population, “not only because of the specimens we have been releasing in recent years, but also because the females Urtsu and Tahúlla have already had two litters,” which helps to secure the survival of the Iberian lynx.

 

Since the project began in the high plateau and mountains of Lorca in 2023, the resident cats have been expanding their territory into Andalucia and Castilla-La Mancha. This hasn’t come without its challenges but, on the whole, the females are establishing stable territories of their own and breeding with great success.

 

Others have created new connecting corridors and are interacting with reintroduced cats in the likes of the Sierra de Arana in Granada, María in Almería and Guarrizas in Jaén, and new movements have also been reported towards the areas of Hellín in Albacete and Campo de Montiel in the province of Ciudad Real.

 

The Iberian lynx population in Spain once numbered barely one hundred, while now it has surpassed 2,400. This increase has allowed the species' threat level to be lowered from 'Endangered' to 'Vulnerable', according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).