Lynx

Lynxes are nocturnal and have excellent eyesight and hearing. Like other cats, they stalk their prey before rushing it and biting its throat to suffocate it. In the north of Sweden the lynx’s main diet is reindeer, while further south the most common prey is deer. Lynxes will also eat hares, beavers and small elk.

They live in large territories in different types of forest where they can find enough prey, and where the area is undisturbed.

In the past, the lynx was hunted for its beautiful fur. In the early 1900s, the government even offered bounties for every animal killed. The population became so rare that the lynx was granted protected status in 1928. As the numbers recovered, hunting resumed. Between 1986 and 1995, the lynx was once again protected. Today, both protective culling and licensed hunting are permitted, primarily as a means to regulate the size of predator populations.

At Nordens Ark we have the Carpathian lynx, a subspecies that naturally ranges through the mountain chains of Eastern and Central Europe. Our lynxes form part of a wider international conservation effort run by the Linking Lynx organisation, whose goal is to rebuild healthy, self-sustaining Carpathian lynx populations in Central Europe, where the species was once extinct.

The breeding programme is coordinated by EAZA (the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria), which supplies carefully selected zoo-bred lynxes for approved reintroduction projects.

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