The Iberian lynx, the world’s most endangered feline species, could be a step further from extinction after a Spanish woman left three million euros in her will to help protect the animals.
The woman bequeathed a total of nine million euros (US$12 million, NT$392.4 million) to animal charities, one-third of which is to go to the lynxes, local authorities in Spain’s southern Andalucia region said last week.
A six-year-old captive breeding program for the lynx is based in Andalucia’s Donana National Park.
The Madrid newspaper El Pais said the woman left the nest-egg when she died in October 2008 in Spain’s Canary Islands at the age of 60, but that little else was known about her.
Barely 200 Iberian lynxes are believed to remain in the wild, mostly in protected areas of southern Spain. At the start of the 20th century there were around 100,000 in Spain and Portugal.
But urban development, hunting, and most of all a dramatic decline due to disease in the number of wild rabbits, the lynx’s main prey, have sharply reduced the numbers of the spotted cats, which can grow to about one meter in length.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature now lists the species as “critically endangered” — the highest category of risk for a wild animal.
(AFP)
伊比利山貓是全世界瀕臨絕種威脅最嚴重的貓科動物，一名西班牙婦人在遺囑中指定將三百萬歐元遺產投入其保護工作後，牠們可暫時免除絕種的危險了。
西班牙南部安達盧西亞地方政府上週表示，這名婦人總共捐了九百萬歐元（一千兩百萬美元，新台幣三億九千兩百四十萬元）的遺產給動物慈善機構，其中三分之一是捐給山貓保育機構。
安達盧西亞的多尼納國家公園進行一項山貓圈養繁殖計畫已經六年。
馬德里《國家報》報導，這名女士二ＯＯ八年十月在西班牙加那利群島過世後留下這筆遺產，享年六十歲，但有關她的生平則無人知曉。
據信，現今野生的伊比利山貓不到兩百隻，其中多數生活在西班牙南部的保護區。二十世紀初，西班牙和葡萄牙境內的數量還有約十萬隻。
然而，受到都市開發、狩獵，尤其是山貓最主要獵物野兔因染病數量驟減等因素影響，這種體型可長達約一公尺、渾身斑點的貓科動物數量急劇減少。
自然保育國際聯盟現已將這種動物列入「嚴重瀕臨絕種」等級──野生動物面臨風險類別的最高等級。
（法新社╱翻譯：袁星塵）
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