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Additional articles: EAZA News 52
Original, unedited text as received by EAZA on 3 August 2005
Brezo, Brezina and Brisa:
The first Iberian lynx cubs born in captivity
Astrid Vargas, Fernando Martínez, Juana Bergara, Luis Díez Klink,
Jose Rodríguez and David Rodríguez, El Acebuche Breeding Centre, Doñana, Spain
On 28 March 2005, three Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) cubs were born at El Acebuche Captive Breeding Center in Doñana´s National Park, Spain. The mother, Saliega, is a three-year-old female that was captured in Sierra Morena in April, 2002, when she was approximately one-month-old. She was raised at the Jerez Zoo together with Aura, another Iberian lynx cub from the Doñana population. They were both transferred to El Acebuche Breeding Center in January 2003.
Saliega´s first estrous took place in January 2005, when she turned three years old,
which is the normal age for first reproduction in this species. She was paired up with Garfio, a four-year-old male also from the Sierra Morena population who was incorporated to the captive breeding programme as an adult. Sixty-four days after the first observed copulation, Saliega gave birth to three cubs, a male and two females, which received the names of Brezo, Brezina and Brisa, respectively.
During the first four weeks after delivery, Saliega kept her cubs in the natal den, a hollow trunk adapted to a nestbox located within a 550 m2 naturalistic enclosure. At post-natal day 28, when the cubs had started to be more mobile, the mom moved her
litter to an alternative and more spacious indoor den. In the very early morning of 11 May, there was an unfortunate fight between the two largest cubs, which resulted in the death of Brezina -the largest female- due to traumatic shock. Even though the mother tried to separate both cubs during the fight, she was not efficient enough at doing so. Brezo also resulted injured during the fight while Brisa -the smallest cub- escaped to a den during the fight and was unharmed.
In an effort to understand more about this unexpected and tragic accident, we contacted various experts on lynx biology. An important key came from Dr. Sergey Naidenko, a Russian scientist who has been studying agonistic behaviour in Eurasian lynx for more than a decade. His results, published mostly in Russian, indicate that aggressive behaviour between lynx cubs take place in most litters with various degrees of intensity, which vary from mild to severe, including death. Aggressions generally take place between days 33 and 61 of life, with a highest frequency around post-natal day 45. Our Iberian lynx litter was 44 days old when the fight took place. Naidenko has observed that the incidence of fights greatly diminishes after 60 days of age, a time when the cubs´ behaviour becomes more ritualised and hierarchies are better established.
Based on Iberian lynx field data, we know that, generally, Iberian lynx give birth to three cubs, but after the third month of life wild dams generally roam with only two cubs. The loss of the third cub does not appear to be related to prey availability or to cub size; i.e., it is not always the smallest cub of the litter that is lost and losses also occur in years of high rabbit densities.
Presently, Brezo has successfully recovered from his wounds and the two cubs are back together with mother Saliega, which continues to show excellent maternal skills and is currently teaching them hunting skills. The accident, although sad and tragic, has helped to reveal a relevant aspect of Iberian lynx biology with important management implications for the species in captivity and in the wild.
It is important to note that, now more than ever, Iberian lynx captive breeding efforts must be tightly coordinated with in situ conservation efforts. Conservation of the two remaining wild populations (Doñana and Sierra Morena, both in Andalusia),
and preparation of potential habitat for future reintroductions are long-term processes that require a firm compromise from GOs and NGOs as well a legal, financial, logistic and community support. Besides maintaining a genetically and behaviorally healthy captive population, one of the primary goals of the Iberian lynx conservation breeding programme is to promote habitat protection for future reintroductions.