Spain’s rewilding of Iberian lynx at risk after lobbying by hunters and farmers

Lynx pardinus was close to extinction before conservation efforts led its status to be upgraded from ‘endangered’ to ‘vulnerable’. Photograph: StockPhotoAstur/Alamy

Only last year it was hailed as a conservation success story: the Iberian lynx, which had been close to extinction, had sprung back to life thanks to a two-decade-long effort to expand the population.

Now, however, that progress is at risk after several regional governments in Spain acceded to pressure from farmers and hunters to block the reintroduction of the species into the wild.