Nature group launches effort to protect lynx

Tito the lynx is on the Internet. Switzerland's most renowned feline predator, once threatened with the death penalty because of repeated attacks against sheep, is the star of a campaign to save the lynx from extinction.

Tito the lynx is on the Internet. Switzerland’s most renowned feline predator, once threatened with the death penalty because of repeated attacks against sheep, is the star of a campaign to save the lynx from extinction.

The campaign has been launched by Switzerland’s largest nature protection organisation, Pro Natura, which says that the lynx is a threatened animal and lacks the room it needs to survive.
Pro Natura has named the lynx “animal of the year”.

Tito’s life story appears on the web, together with details of his movements, as an illustration that the lynx still has a place in Switzerland’s forests.

“We fear that the lynx might become extinct in Switzerland, as it did one hundred years ago, if we cannot make people accept that the lynx is a neighbour in the woods like every other animal living there,” says Rico Kessler from Pro Natura.

Not only sheep farmers have criticised the presence of the lynx in Switzerland, but also hunters who fear competition. Lynxes hunt the same animals that the hunters are trying to track down.

Pro Natura argues that on average only one sheep is killed per year for every lynx there is in Switzerland.

“Every sheep that is killed is paid for by the state and sheep farmers are also supported by the tax payers. We think that as a majority of Swiss people would like to have the lynx in our woods, sheep owners should have a certain responsibility to accept this,” says Kessler.

As part of its campaign, a special exhibition train will be travelling to those parts of Switzerland where lynxes have been spotted.

“The more people know about how a lynx lives, the more people will accept the lynx as a precious part of our nature,” says Kessler.

By Robert Brookes