Is the Balkan Lynx Dying Out?
The fact that the Balkan lynx is on the brink of extinction and is a protected species is known to very few people.
For 15 years, a team from the Balkan Lynx Recovery Program has been working to protect the Balkan lynx (Lynx lynx balcanicus).
Fewer than 50 animals remaining
The Balkan lynx is listed as a critically endangered subspecies of the Eurasian lynx and in Appendix II of the Bern Convention. Its population is currently found only in the border region between North Macedonia and Albania and the western Kosovo. Current estimates put the population at fewer than 50 wild animals.
Poaching and habitat loss
In addition to the high risk of extinction, the Balkan lynx is severely threatened by the recreational hunting and poaching of the animals themselves as well as their main prey (roe deer and chamois), and by the destruction of its habitat.
The creation of new national parks and the temporary hunting– and logging bans in Albania are successes achieved by conservationists in efforts to save the lynx's habitat.
In North Macedonia, the lynx — the largest cat in the Balkans — is the national animal and is depicted on the 5-denar coin.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In our dossiers on the criticism of recreational hunting gather fact-checks, analyses and background reports. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
