Lynx back in Italy
Collared animal wanders in from Switzerland
Italy News Agency article link
Linda Brown - April 4, 2008
(ANSA) - Bolzano, April 4 - The lynx has returned to Italy after being wiped out 100 years ago, the forestry service said Friday.
The reappearance of one of the wild cats in the northern Italian mountains, which has wandered in from neighbouring Switzerland, was an event ''of exceptional interest and value,'' it said.
The service noted the lynx had lived in the Alps from earliest recorded history until it was exterminated by hunters and sheep farmers in the early 20th century.
The presence of the lynx in the Val di Non mountains has been detected thanks to a signalling collar slipped onto the animal in Switzerland last month.
Lynxes became extinct in that country at about the same time as they did in Italy but were successfully re-introduced in the 1970s.
The feline was sporadically spotted there until the mid-1990s but after that it disappeared again.
A predator at the top of the mountain food chain, the lynx poses no danger to humans.
The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is a medium-sized cat native to European and Siberian forests, where it is one of the predators. The Eurasian lynx is the biggest of the four species of lynx. All have short tails, characteristic tufts of black hair on the tip of the ears and a ruff under the neck which has black bars, resembling a bow tie. The Eurasian lynx has grey to reddish fur with black spots. It is mainly nocturnal and lives solitarily as an adult. Lynxes prey on hares, rabbits, rodents, foxes, roe deer and reindeer. As with other cats, going for larger prey presents a risk to the animal. There are three other species of lynx: the Iberian (Spanish) lynx, the Canadian lynx and the bobcat.
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From Flickr user nerudagirl:
During the centuries this has been a fiercly hunted down Cat, only to from time to time having become close to extinction here, in Sweden ..Even our vikings (Brutes as they were) made a great trade with the furs. A beautiful magnificent Cat......
In the 15'th century the Royal Court appointed special Hunters focusing on Lynx alone more or less to supply the Royal family & the Court with Lynx fur to use for bedding...
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*9-19-10 Addition: It's interesting to note that in the same way that the lynx has returned to the Italian Alps via Switzerland, bears have returned to Switzerland via the Italian Alps. Actually bears are making a comeback in all of central Europe from resettlement projects in Italy, Austria, and France. Wolves also are making a comeback. It would be so nice if there were a little bit more room for bears, wolves, and lynxes in Europe, rather than trying so hard to squeeze in as many of the world's eight or so billion people as possible. What about the right of the animals to inhabit their rightful territory?
The Great Bear Comeback (Spiegel)
Bears may be back in Swiss Alps (BBC)
Wolves, Bears Make Comeback in Europe (Deutsche Welle)
Wolves Make a Comeback (ABC News)
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