Officials across the board met up in Silves last week to “talk Lynx”. The meeting was designed to create a strategy for 2014 as the borough’s national reproduction centre prepares to release its first ‘big cats’ into the wilderness of the Algarve.
It is a plan fraught with controversy. Will there be enough rabbits for the Iberian lynx to survive on? Will farmers and local country people react positively, or will they simply see the predatory lynx as a renewed menace to be destroyed? Thus a huge drive to make people aware of the big cats’ importance and value has to be undertaken.
Águas do Algarve is one of the many entities involved in safeguarding the future of this flagship species that had become all but extinct before conservation initiatives. Also involved is the ICNF (nature and forestry institute) and the local borough council.
