[Animals] From the lynx to the Cantabrian capercaillie, Spain in eight animals

[Kyro]

 

If the bull and the wolf have been the main beasts for counting Spain for decades, the survival of these totems depends on many other less showy, but enormously decisive species, which sustain the ecosystems despite the fact that almost no one includes them in their stories. Now more than ever it is worth explaining how and where we relate to them. Giant lizards, capercaillie or lynx help to understand why the island of El Hierro, the valley of Laciana or Sierra Morena are the way they are. The copies that appear below are part of Lagarta, a book that presents stories where animals that are often as invisible as emblematic connect amazingly with people gifted for the natural. The alliances between these invisible beings will determine our future.

1. Lynx
Although the Iberian lynx and the boreal lynx coincided on the Peninsula, there is no trace of the latter and the Iberian was barely saved at the end of the last century, when Spain resisted being the first country in the modern world where a large feline. The money obtained with a European Life project reconciled politicians, environmentalists, hunters, ranchers, neighbors and other groups that inhabit the territories surrounded by this feline. Result: after calculating about 30 reproductive females, the last census of Iberian lynxes was 1,111.

The Doñana preserve was key to keeping the species alive, although it has lost its hook. The Iberian only eats rabbit and the mastic is its ideal refuge, but both are scarce in Doñana, while the lynxes multiply at a rate that encourages them to spread through Sierra Morena (with Andújar claiming lynx capital) and to follow routes that connect the Guadalmellato and Cardeña rivers (Córdoba), on an unstoppable journey to the north that has allowed them to be sighted in the Montes de Toledo, Extremadura de Valdecigüeñas or the Matachel valley.

https://elpais.com/elviajero/2022-12-11/del-lince-al-urogallo-cantabrico-espana-en-ocho-animales.html