Eurasian lynx

The lynx eats meat.

It hides and waits very quietly. Then it pounces to catch a deer, a hare or a bird.

Eurasian lynx are carnivores and eat only meat. Most of their food is small hoofed animals such as roe deer, chamois and musk deer. They also catch hares, rabbits, foxes, rodents and birds. In deep winter snow, they can even catch animals as big as elk and caribou.

A lynx creeps close under cover, then pounces. In Switzerland, scientists found that roe deer and chamois made up about four out of five animals lynx caught. One adult needs about one roe deer or chamois a week.

The diet is dominated by small ungulates. In Swiss radio-tracking studies, 51.3 percent of prey items were roe deer and 28.5 percent chamois, with most of the rest hares, foxes and marmots. Elsewhere musk deer are important, and ADW notes that larger ungulates such as elk and caribou are taken in winter when deep snow slows them.

The lynx is an ambush predator: it stalks under cover, seizes prey with the claws of its forepaws and, KORA says, kills with a bite to the throat (ADW also describes bites to the neck or snout). A roe deer feeds it for several nights, and leftovers are cached. KORA estimates an adult needs about one roe deer or chamois a week, 50 to 60 a year. Attacks on sheep happen locally, usually when wild prey is scarce.

A lynx likes to be on its own.

It is very quiet and hard to see. It leaves smelly marks to tell other lynx, this is my place.

Eurasian lynx live alone, except for mothers with kittens. Each has its own home area. In Switzerland a female's area averages about 90 square kilometers and a male's about 150. Lynx leave scent marks on stumps, rocks and woodpiles to tell other lynx where they are.

Lynx are mostly active at night, and also around dawn and dusk. They rest in thick bushes, tall grass or trees, and they are good climbers. They are usually quiet, but they do call, mostly in the mating season.

Lynx are solitary; the only lasting bond is between a mother and her kittens. Adults do not tolerate others of the same sex in their territory, but a male's range often overlaps one or two females'. Home ranges vary from 25 to 2,800 square kilometers depending on habitat and prey, and grow when prey declines; Swiss averages are 90 square kilometers for females and 150 for males.

KORA describes lynx as principally nocturnal, while ADW reports most activity in the early morning and evening; in the mating season they are more often active by day. Spacing is kept by scent marks, and calls are heard mainly between adults in the mating season and between mothers and kittens.

Long ago, people hunted lynx until they were gone from many places.

Now people protect them. Lynx have been brought back to forests in Switzerland, Germany, France and Austria.

In the early 1900s, the Eurasian lynx came close to being endangered because people hunted it for its fur. It disappeared from Switzerland, where the last one was seen in 1904.

Then forests and deer recovered, and people began to bring lynx back. In 1971 a pair from the Carpathian Mountains was released in Switzerland, and lynx were also returned to Germany, France and Austria. Today the IUCN lists it as Least Concern, but cars, illegal killing and broken-up forests are still dangers. Lynx are no threat to people.

The IUCN lists Lynx lynx as Least Concern with a stable population trend. Hunting for fur brought it close to endangerment in the early 1900s; ADW reports that commercial hunting is now illegal everywhere except Russia. Main threats are deforestation, loss of prey to game hunting and illegal hunting for the fur trade.

Reintroductions in the 1960s and 1970s restored lynx to parts of Germany, France, Austria and Switzerland. In Switzerland, where the cat was extirpated by 1904, releases began in 1971, but KORA warns that the population's long-term survival is not ensured, citing illegal killing, vehicle collisions, habitat fragmentation and inbreeding from few founders. Swiss farmers are reimbursed for livestock killed by lynx.