page_title: Iberian lynx
section_title: Captive breeding
hierarchical_section_title: Iberian lynx / Conservation / Captive breeding
caption_attribution_description: English: Iberian Lynx Breeding Centre near the village of Vale Fuzeiros. The (CNRLI) is on a hillside above the Arade River close to the Barragem (Dam) do Funcho. The centre is not open to the public but can be viewed from a hillside viewing platform constructed on a hill top overlooking the complex.
context_page_description: The Iberian lynx is a wild cat species endemic to the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe. It is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. In the 20th century, the Iberian lynx population had declined because of overhunting and poaching, fragmentation of suitable habitats; the population of its main prey species, the European rabbit, experienced a severe decline caused by myxomatosis and rabbit haemorrhagic disease.
  By the turn of the 21st century, the Iberian lynx was on the verge of extinction, as only about 100 individuals survived in two isolated subpopulations in Andalusia. Conservation measures were implemented since 2002 which included improving habitat, restocking of rabbits, translocating, re-introducing and monitoring Iberian lynxes. By 2012, the population had increased to 326 individuals.
  It is a monotypic species and is thought to have evolved from Lynx issiodorensis.
context_section_description: In 2002, the Jerez Zoo confirmed it had three females and was developing a plan for a captive breeding program. One of those females was Saliega, captured as a kitten in April 2002. She became the first Iberian lynx to breed in captivity, giving birth to three healthy kittens on 29 March 2005 at the El Acebuche Breeding Center, in the Doñana Nature Park in Huelva, Spain. Over the following years, the number of births grew and additional breeding centers were opened. In March 2009, it was reported that 27 kittens had been born since the beginning of the program. In 2009, the Spanish government planned to build a €5.5 million breeding center in Zarza de Granadilla. In Portugal the Centro Nacional de Reprodução do Lince-Ibérico (CNRLI) established a breeding center in Silves.
  There were 14 surviving kittens in 2008 and 15 in 2009. In 2010, intense rain and health issues resulted in lower reproductive success—14 born, 8 surviving—but the next year, breeding centers recorded 45 births with 26 surviving kittens. In 2012, breeding centers in Portugal and Spain reported a total of 44 survivors from 59 births, while 2013 saw a total of 44 survivors out of 53 born. In 2017, the total population of Iberian lynx reached 475 specimens.
  In March 2013, it was reported that Iberian lynx embryos and oocytes had been collected and preserved for the first time. They were collected from Saliega and another female—both sterilized and retired from the breeding program—by Berlin's Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and stored in liquid nitrogen at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid for possible future breeding. In July 2014, the MNCN-CSIC announced they had produced sperm cells from the testicular tissue of sexually immature lynx.
  Iberian lynx can be observed in captivity only at the Jerez Zoo, since December 2014 at the Lisbon Zoo, and since July 2016 at the Madrid Zoo.
  The Jerez animals integrate the breeding program, the two Lisbon lynxes were formerly in the Portuguese breeding center but are no longer suited for the program (the female had multiple failed pregnancies and the male has a form of epilepsy), and the two Madrid lynxes were equally retired from the breeding program for not being suited for reproduction.
caption: The Iberian Lynx CNRLI reproduction centre near the village of Vale Fuzeiros (mun. of Silves, Portugal)
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