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In Donana National Park in Southern Spain, scientists are attempting one of conservation's most difficult feats: breeding predators in captivity to reintroduce them to the wild. Reintroduction is generally regarded as a last resort by biologists, but in the case of the Iberian lynx, there's no choice. Severely overhunted for decades, the species has been declining rapidly since the 1950s, when the rabbit population it dines on was decimated by disease. Today the lynx is the world's most endangered cat, down to fewer than 200 in Spain and probably extinct in Portugal. "There are only two reproducing populations left in southern Spain," says Urs Breitenmoser of the Institute of Veterinary Virology in Bern, who co-chairs the IUCN/World Conservation Union's Cat Specialist Group. "We need a breeding program in order to re-create a viable population that is genetically diverse." Eight wild lynx are now in captivity and, with luck, will start having offspring next year. Within a few years, scientists hope to begin the delicate task of repopulating areas that have lost the species. While that sort of intervention has worked with black-footed ferrets in parts of North America, it has never been done with cats.
What has worked before, however, is noncaptive breeding programs. In the mid-1990s the Florida panther, a subspecies of the mountain lion, had been reduced to 30 to 50 animals that were showing hallmarks of inbreeding, including kinked tails and deformed sperm. In 1995 eight female cougars from Texas were transported to Florida and let loose. They began breeding with their endangered Floridian cousins. Last April, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials declared the program a success, estimating the genetically healthy population at 80 to 100 animals. Alas, the Iberian lynx has no suitable relative to reinvigorate its stock.
PRESERVING CAT FOOD
In the parched landscape of Southern Iran where the desert runs into the foothills of the Zagros Mountains lives a small population of 50 to 60 Asiatic cheetahs. They are the last cheetahs outside Africa. Despite the diplomatic chill between Tehran and Washington, Iranian officials recently invited George Schaller and Luke Hunter of the WCS to come and help prevent the cats' extinction.
Working with Behzad Rahgoshai, deputy project manager of Iran's Conservation of Asiatic Cheetah Project, they have discovered that although some cheetahs are shot, the main reason for the animals' decline is that their favorite foods are disappearing from the landscape. Both the goitered and jeeber gazelles have been virtually wiped out by nomadic hunters. Cheetahs have been forced to survive on urial and ibex--mountain sheep and mountain goats--which are impossible to chase on steep, stony slopes. "Cheetahs have to wait for them to come down to the foothills in search of water holes," says Hunter. "It means they have a narrow hunting window, and that is depressing their population." To rehabilitate the prey, which are all protected species under Iranian law, the scientists are pushing the government to better enforce protection against the nomads' poaching and restrict the ownership of firearms in the region.