02/02/2022
Almería will be a land of lynxes
The Sierra de las Estancias and Los Vélez have become sighting areas in recent times
The province of Almería is not home to Iberian lynxes. At least in freedom. In recent times, this spectacular animal, which until recently has been in danger of extinction, has been typical of other areas such as Sierra Morena or Doñana-Aljarafe.
From barely a hundred Iberian lynxes in freedom, it has gone to a thousand in the southern half of the peninsula. And the intention is that their number continues to grow. This is the challenge faced by the new European program Life Lynx Connect, endowed with 18.7 million euros over five years, which aims to carry out the connection of the six existing towns on the peninsula and also provides for the creation of two new areas lynceras, one in Lorca (Murcia) and another in Sierra Arana (Granada).
And Almería, which in principle is a corridor area, will undoubtedly become a crucial point where the lynx could find the necessary land to settle. They are not predictions, it is pure logic. The Gigante-Pericay mountains of Lorca, next to the Sierra María-Los Vélez Natural Park, are the setting where the releases are planned in 2023.
And in the western part of the province, the release will be in Sierra Arana (Granada), a mountainous unit linked to the Sierra de Huétor and bordering the municipalities of Deifontes, Iznalloz, Cogollos Vega, Huétor Santillán, Diezma, Darro, La Peza, Pinar, Morelabor and Huelago.
According to environmentalists, Almería has "the need to arbitrate effective ecological corridors between the different natural spaces of Andalusia and the impossibility of protecting wild species while the territory is fragmented with infrastructures, seas of plastic and urbanizations".
"It is demonstrated that the mobility of the lynx is, as was already known, very wide and with good conditions, they can recover habitats lost in the past throughout the Andalusian territory", they add.
Thus, they also believe that the "functionality" and "importance" of the network of ecological corridors that form the Special Conservation Areas (ZEC), declared by the European Union and included in the Natura 2000 Network, have been demonstrated; a network "very mistreated, especially in Almeria".
These demands came after an Iberian lynx was run over, in 2020, on the Almería capital ring road, near the PITA industrial estate. The LIFE Lynx Connect project aims not only to create these communities, but also for the new colonies to serve as a refuge for this species during its migrations. And ensuring your safety is key. The running over of lynxes on roads is the main cause of unnatural mortality of lynxes, and it will be avoided with a system that emits a light to the vehicle when it has detected that it may collide with an animal that is going to cross and, if it does not reduce speed, sends an acoustic signal.
“The arrival of lynxes in the province of Almería would not have been possible without the existence of these protected areas. Specifically the Z.E.C. “Ramblas de Gérgal, Tabernas and Sur de Sierra Alhamilla” serves as a link between four spaces of great ecological importance, such as Sierra Nevada, Tabernas, Sierra Alhamilla and Cabo de Gata. Without this Z.E.C. the union of these 4 spaces would have disappeared a long time ago under the plastics”, argues Ecologists in Action.
But, during the last dates, there have been appointments of lynxes in various points of the province of Almería, even being exposed on social networks. Not only the outrage has been recorded. In the Sierra de las Estancias there have been cists of the Iberian lynx, as in Los Vélez.
Writings document their previous presence
According to the website towards wild, Antonio Jose Navarro (1739-1797), Cura de Vélez Rubio and Abad de Baza, a great fan of expeditions through these mountains in the north of the province, left testimony of the wealth of fauna that these natural spaces boasted even at late eighteenth century.
“Deer, roe deer, mountain goats; Among the carnivores, omitting the wolves and foxes, unfortunately very common, there is… the cerval cat, the lynx, which in these towns they call the nail cat. It is here larger than naturalists have said, for it not only exceeds the size of foxes, but some reach that of a retriever. His beautiful fur, the small pins mounted on his ears, the short tail, give him a particular character and a nice figure. It is carnivorous, but it flees from man and dogs; if the spots on his skin were better finished, he would look like a small panther”, he narrated.
Source: Diario de Almeria in English using Google Translate
