Eurasian lynx

• 1. Introduction

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  In 1975, a Eurasian lynx was sighted in the western Dhaulagiri massif of Nepal, high among the Himalayan peaks. The sighting suits a cat that lives in temperate and boreal forests up to an elevation of 5500 m. The Eurasian lynx, Lynx lynx, is a medium-sized wild cat and the largest of the four lynx species alive today. Its range runs from Northern, Central and Eastern Europe through Siberia to Central Asia, the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas.

  A cat with that much territory ought to be secure, yet it is not. Habitat loss, fragmentation, poaching and the depletion of its prey all press on it. This documentary asks how an animal built for snow and silence manages to hunt and survive, and who its rivals are. It also asks how the lynx vanished from country after country across Europe, and how it has returned in some of them.

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• 2. Built for Snow

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  Black tufts of hair on the ears and a short, bobbed tail with an all-black tip give the Eurasian lynx its unmistakable outline. The tail measures only 11 to 24.5 cm. A long grey-and-white ruff frames the face. The short coat is reddish or brown and marked with black spots, and the number and pattern of spots vary widely between individuals. The underparts, neck and chin are whitish.

  Lynx from the southern end of the range have brighter fur with more spots. In winter the coat grows much thicker and turns silver-grey or greyish brown. Some animals also carry dark brown stripes on the forehead and back.

  The legs are powerful and relatively long, and the large paws are webbed and furred, so they act like snowshoes. Even so, loose, deep snow is hard going for the cat. It cannot survive where snow lies deeper than 100 cm. In mountain country it therefore drops down to the lowlands in winter, following the animals it hunts.

  Body size changes from place to place. Males measure 76 to 106 cm in body length and females 73 to 99 cm, and the shoulder height is 55 to 75 cm. In Russia, weights run from 12 to 32 kg. Reports of more than 30 kg are rare and may be exaggerated, and one lynx from the Altai Mountains allegedly weighed 35 kg. Animals in Fennoscandia and further west are far smaller, at 7 to 26 kg, though some in the Carpathian Mountains may rival the Altai giants.

  The naturalist Carl Linnaeus first named the species Felis lynx in 1758, in his work Systema Naturae. Later scientists proposed many subspecies during the 19th and 20th centuries. Six are still accepted. They include the Caucasian lynx, named by Satunin in 1915, and the Balkan lynx, named by Bures in 1941. The Carpathian lynx, described by Kratochvil and Stollmann in 1963, would later supply animals for reintroductions across the Alps. Others were proposed but are not considered valid, among them the Altai, Baikal, Amur and Sardinian lynx.

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• 3. Silent Hunters

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  A single night's travel for a Eurasian lynx can cover up to 20 km, although about half that distance is more typical. The cat is mainly nocturnal or crepuscular, and it sleeps through the day in dense thickets or other hiding places. When food is scarce it may hunt in daylight. Adults live alone. A hunting area can span anywhere from 20 to 450 km2, depending on how much prey the land holds. Males roam over much larger areas, while females tend to keep exclusive ranges. The cats patrol their ground regularly and leave scent marks of faeces, urine or scrapes. The faeces often sit in prominent spots along the boundary.

  Outside the breeding season, the lynx is generally silent. It can mew, hiss, growl and purr, and like a house cat it chatters at prey that is just out of reach. These sounds are so quiet and so seldom heard that a lynx may live in an area for years without anyone noticing. Prey remains or tracks in the snow are usually found long before the animal itself is seen.

  Climbing onto high rocks or fallen trees lets the lynx scan the land before it strikes. It ambushes, but it also stalks, sneaks and pounces, using both sight and hearing. It has killed adult deer weighing at least 150 kg. Among lynx species it is the only one that preferentially takes hoofed animals. It favours fairly large ones in winter, when small prey is harder to find. Where roe deer are common, they appear to be its first choice.

  The menu is long. Recorded prey include hares, rabbits, marmots, squirrels, dormice, muskrats, martens, grouse, red foxes, wild boar, chamois, young moose, red deer and reindeer. In Estonia, an adult kills about 60 roe deer a year. When the roe deer population plummets, it turns to Eurasian beaver, hares, foxes and raccoon dogs. Red deer are the preferred prey in parts of Poland and Austria, and chamois are favoured in places in Switzerland. In parts of Finland the cats regularly eat introduced white-tailed deer. An adult needs 1.1 to 2 kg of meat a day, and a large kill can take several days to finish. It also eats carrion when it finds some.

  In Anatolia, European hare makes up 79% to 99% of the prey biomass the lynx eats. Hoofed animals such as wild goat, chamois, red deer and wild boar live alongside it, yet they never exceed 10% of its diet. Across ten study sites on the Black Sea coast of northern Anatolia, lynx occurrence followed hare occurrence rather than roe deer. Its daily intake there is about 900 g. Researchers therefore classify it as a specialist in hares and their relatives. Studies in Central Asia and in the Sakha Republic show a similar pattern. Scat collected in Dolpa District in the Nepal Himalayas held woolly hare, pika, mountain voles, Himalayan marmot and even domestic goat.

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• 4. Wolves and Rivals

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  In the Belovezh Forest, researchers found lynx hair and bones inside the stomachs of wolves. Tracks in the Central Forest Nature Reserve tell the same story. In Russian forests, the grey wolf kills and eats any lynx that fails to escape into a tree. The lynx lives near a stronghold and often eats its food high in a tree or on an inaccessible ledge. If danger comes, it climbs quickly or heads down the edge of a cliff or ravine.

  Lynx numbers fall when wolves arrive. That happened in the Pritelsk region of the Altai Mountains, and lynx also take smaller prey where wolves are active. In eastern Slovakia, lynx moved out after wolves increased following World War II.

  A fight in Belarus points the other way. A male lynx expelled an adult and apparently healthy male wolf, and the wolf then vanished from the record, perhaps dead from its wounds. High mortality among wolf cubs in the Naliboki forest may be linked to a growing lynx population. No signs of wolves preying on lynx turned up there, so locally the lynx may dominate.

  The wolverine is the other main predator in the north. Predation and consumption of lynx by wolverines has been documented in the Pechora-Ilych Nature Reserve in Russia. In the Altai Mountains the lynx actively avoids them. In Sweden, of 33 lynx deaths in one observed population, one was probably caused by a wolverine.

  In taiga regions of Russia, the wolf, wolverine, red fox and eagle owl also compete with the lynx for prey. In years of few hares the contest gets especially fierce, because rivals can take additional, larger animals more efficiently. In the north, red foxes and even wolverines vastly outnumber the lynx. Golden eagles and wild boar, which scavenge from lynx kills, join the list of competitors. In the south, snow leopards and leopards do too.

  Two ecosystems in Anatolia revealed cannibalism. Fellow lynx made up 5% to 8% of the prey biomass in the diet. Claws and bones showed that the victims were sub-adults, killed during the mating and spring seasons. Lynx there also ate red fox, pine marten, domestic and feral cats and dogs, and golden jackal remains turned up in their droppings. Around Manchuria and the Amur River, the Amur leopard may target lynx. Siberian tigers have preyed on them too, as shown by the contents of tiger stomachs.

  Brown bears are not known to kill lynx. In some areas, however, they habitually take over deer kills, sometimes before the lynx has eaten any of its own catch.

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• 5. Dens and Kittens

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  From January to April each year, the Eurasian lynx breeding season runs. The female typically comes into oestrus just once in that window, for four to seven days. If her first litter is lost, a second period of oestrus is common. The species does not seem able to adjust its breeding to how much prey is around.

  Gestation lasts 67 to 74 days. The mother builds her den in a secluded spot, often sheltered by overhanging branches or tree roots. She lines it with feathers, deer hair and dry grass.

  Newborn kittens weigh 240 to 430 g and open their eyes after ten to twelve days. Their first fur is plain, greyish brown, and the full adult colouring arrives at around eleven weeks. Solid food starts at six to seven weeks, which is also when the kittens begin leaving the den. Full weaning takes five or six months. The den itself is abandoned two to three months after the birth. The young usually stay with their mother until about ten months old.

  Females usually have two kittens, and litters of more than three are rare. Sexual maturity comes at two or three years. In captivity, a Eurasian lynx has lived for twenty-one years.

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• 6. Lost and Returned

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  By the early 19th century, persecution had wiped out the Eurasian lynx in the lowlands of western and southern Europe. It survived only in mountain areas and Scandinavian forests. By the 1950s it had gone from most of Western and Central Europe, and only scattered, isolated populations remain today.

  Dinogad's Smock, a Welsh poem from the 7th or 8th century, likely refers to lynx in Cumbria. Subfossil remains show the cat lived in Great Britain in the early Middle Ages. Some mentions of "wild cats" and "cats of the mountain", running as late as the 18th century, may describe lynx rather than the wildcat that people usually assume. Reintroduction has been proposed for the Scottish Highlands and for Kielder Forest in Northumberland. In January 2025, several lynx were illegally released near Kingussie in the Cairngorms National Park. The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland captured them and took them to the Highland Wildlife Park, then to Edinburgh Zoo.

  In Green Spain, a large cat called the "tiger" or "deer's wolf" (llobu or lobo cerval) hunted deer and livestock until the 19th century. Tradition said these accounts described the Iberian lynx, Lynx pardinus, a smaller species found only on the Iberian Peninsula. Genetic testing of remains showed that both species lived there until recent times with little overlap. The Eurasian lynx occupied temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, while the Iberian lynx kept to Mediterranean forests, woodland and scrub. The Spanish Eurasian lynx was a unique, now extinct lineage, most closely related to Carpathian and Baltic animals. It was already genetically impoverished in pre-Roman times, possibly through a founder effect, which left it more exposed to human persecution. Asturias studied reintroduction in 2019. In the Catalonian Pyrenees, the last one was killed in the 1930s, though unconfirmed sightings continued until the 1990s. The Síndic d'Aran planned a reintroduction in 2016 and cancelled it after opposition from hunters and livestock farmers.

  Germany exterminated its lynx in 1850. Reintroductions in the 1990s brought them back to the Bavarian Forest and the Harz, while other areas filled with animals migrating from France and the Czech Republic. In 2002, a litter born to a pair in the Harz National Park became the first wild birth on German territory. Small populations also live in Saxon Switzerland, the Palatinate Forest and the Fichtel Mountains. Austria had lost its lynx as well. An episode of the PBS series Nature followed their return to Kalkalpen National Park after an absence of 150 years.

  Simplon pass saw the last confirmed Swiss sighting in 1904. From 1971, Carpathian lynx were released in the Alps and the Jura Mountains, and numbers have since grown slowly but steadily. Around 250 were reported in Switzerland in 2019, roughly a third of them in the Jura. In the French Alps the lynx had been exterminated in the early 20th century. After the Swiss Jura releases of the 1970s, lynx were recorded again in the French Alps and Jura from the late 1970s onwards.

  Italy's Alps have been recolonised since the 1980s, with animals from Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. By 2010, the Alpine lynx population numbered about 120 to 150 animals, spread across 27800 km2 in six sub-areas. Lynx have been sighted sporadically in southern Netherlands since 1985. Since 2020, camera traps have confirmed lynx in the Ardennes of southern Belgium, after more than 25 years of unconfirmed sightings.

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• 7. Northern and Eastern Strongholds

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  Norway paid an official bounty on lynx between 1846 and 1980, and the animals could be hunted without a license. In the 1930s the Scandinavian lynx came close to extinction. Since the 1950s it has slowly recovered, and it now forms three subpopulations in northern, central and southern Scandinavia. Norway introduced a compensation scheme for livestock killed by lynx in 1994. The population there was estimated at 410 in 1996, fell below 260 in 2004, and rose again to about 452 mature individuals by 2008.

  Sweden estimated 1,400 lynx in 2006 and 1,250 in 2011, with hunting controlled by government agencies. Finland counted about 2,200 to 2,300 in 2009, and its population has grown every year since 1991. It is thought to be larger than ever before. In 2009 the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry permitted the hunting of 340 lynx.

  Estonia estimated 900 lynx in 2001. Even though 180 were legally hunted there in 2010, it still has the highest known density of the species in Europe. Latvia had about 700 animals in 2005, in Courland and Vidzeme. Lithuania estimates 80 to 100.

  Poland reported roughly 285 lynx in the wild in 2010. One major population lives in the northeast, notably in the Białowieża Forest, and another in the southeastern Carpathian Mountains. A reintroduced population has lived in Kampinos National Park since the 1990s.

  About 2,800 lynx live in the Carpathian range, shared among the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine and Hungary. That is the largest contiguous population west of the Russian border. Romania holds over 2,000 of them, though some experts think the official figures are overestimated. Slovakia confirmed lynx across more than half its territory in 2012. Yet surveys from 2011 to 2014 found fewer than 30 in the Štiavnica Mountains and Veľká Fatra National Park, and poaching and unreliable counting methods muddy the figures. Hungary has only 10 to 12 animals, in northern mountains near Slovakia. Ukraine has an estimated 350 to 400 in the Carpathians and 80 to 90 in Polesia.

  In the Czech Republic, lynx disappeared from Bohemia between 1830 and 1890 and probably from Moravia around the turn of the 20th century. In the 1980s almost 20 animals imported from Slovakia were released in the Šumava area. The 2006 estimate was 65 to 105, and poachers still threaten them.

  Russia counted 22,510 lynx in 2013, about 9,000 of them in European Russia. Numbers were stable in some regions and falling in others.

  In 1973, Slovenia released three female and three male lynx brought from Slovakia into the Kočevski Rog forest. Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina now hold roughly 130 to 200 lynx, though realistic counts are 40 in Slovenia, 40 to 60 in Croatia and more than 50 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The A1 motorway hinders their spread in the Julian Alps. Croatia's Risnjak massif takes its name from ris, the Croatian word for lynx. Bulgaria declared the animal extinct in 1985, yet sightings continued. A mating call was recorded in the Strandzha mountains in 2006. An ear-marked animal was accidentally shot near Belogradchik two years later, and trail cameras have since recorded others in Osogovo and Strandzha.

  The Balkan lynx has been on the brink of extinction for nearly 100 years. Its numbers are estimated around 100, and illegal poaching drives the decline. It is a national symbol of North Macedonia and appears on the reverse of the 5 denar coin issued in 1993. The name of the Macedonian tribe Lynkestis translates as "Land of the Lynx".

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• 8. Asia and Protection

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  In Ciglikara Nature Reserve, in the Taurus Mountains of Turkey, 15 lynx have been identified. Between 2009 and 2019, researchers using camera traps, genetic material and radiotelemetry followed more than 50 in a mixed forest-steppe in northwestern Anatolia. The species also lives in the Lesser Caucasus, the Kaçkar Mountains and Artvin Province. A breeding population occurs in Sarıkamış-Allahuekber Mountains National Park in Kars Province.

  Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Mongolia lie within the Central Asian range. So do the Chinese provinces of Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Shaanxi, and the northern slopes of Iran's Alborz Mountains. In Chitral District of northern Pakistan, lynx were recorded between 1067 and 5000 m. India's lynx live in Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Kashmir and most other Himalayan states. In Nepal the cat occurs above 3800 m in Humla, Mustang and Dolpa Districts.

  In the Japanese archipelago, fossils of the Eurasian lynx or a close relative from the Late Pleistocene onward have been excavated at various sites. No archaeological evidence from after the Yayoi period has turned up. The animal was probably extirpated during the Jōmon period.

  The Eurasian lynx is on CITES Appendix II and is protected under Appendix III of the Berne Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats. Hunting is illegal in many range countries, with exceptions in Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Armenia and Iraq. Since 2005 the Norwegian government has set national population goals, while a committee of representatives from county assemblies decides the hunting quotas.

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