ARCHIVED - Road safety improvements to make Seville black spot safer for Iberian lynx

Road accidents and hunters are the most common causes of unnatural deaths and constantly threaten the re-introduction programme of this endangered species in Spain and Portugal

A project is underway to increase safety on a Seville road in the Doñana National Park area which is notorious for Iberian lynx deaths.

Work has been put out to tender with a budget of more than 376,200 euros to make the 7 kilometres of the Carretera Dehesa de Abajo in Seville a safer place for the endangered species, at least six of which have been run over and killed on this particular stretch of road.

Running from a roundabout on the SE-3302 along the edge of the Dehesa Baja nature reserve, one of the new Iberian lynx home range areas, to the natural corridor of the Guadiamar river, the road belongs to the Guadalquivir River Basin Confederation (CHG) and is an infamous black spot for the endangered felines due to its bad visibility and the good condition of its surface, which leads to drivers speeding. The CHG has made various improvements to its roads in the area since the current management team took over in 2018, including putting up signs to warn of the presence of lynx in the area and adding speed bumps.

The promised work, due to take four months, is aimed to clear the verges and cover them with anti-grass netting and gravel, to help improve both lynx’s and drivers’ views of each other, create eight extra speed bumps and install additional speed limit signs. The project was drawn up with advice from the Andalusian regional government, which is involved in the Life Lynx Connect project, and the WWF.
The Life Lynx Connect programme was launched on 1 September 2020 by the Andalusian government, together with another 20 partners; the new recovery programme with a budget of more than 18 million euros aiming to consolidate the re-introduction of the species and build upon the work undertaken in the original Life Iberlince project.

The project is a complex, transnational one in which the environmental authorities from 2 countries (Spain and Portugal) and 4 Spanish regions (Andalusia, Castilla La Mancha, Extremadura, and Murcia) are taking part together with public and private companies and NGOs from the environmental sector and a foundation within the hunting sector. Its main goal is to achieve a self-sustainable and genetically viable population by consolidating the subpopulations currently in existence: two in Andalusia, two in Castilla La Mancha, one in Extremadura, and one in Portugal. It is implementing various actions based mainly on the genetic management of the species, developing tools to facilitate this management and make it sustainable in the long term.

The Iberian lynx population in Andalusia now comprises more than 460 specimens currently on the census, mainly in the Doñana-Aljarafe and Sierra Morena areas. Altogether 122 Iberian lynx have been released into the wild in Andalusia, 90 of them from captive breeding centres and the other 32 relocated from other areas. Jaén’s Guarrizas area, where 58 of them were released, is the one to have registered the greatest lynx population growth since reintroductions began in 2010.

(see Iberian Lynx released in Seville, two Iberian Lynx released into Jaén within the last month)

There are many obstacles in the smooth progress of this project, the number of animals killed in road accidents and by hunters the biggest issues faced in the re-introduction programme. Significant work has been undertaken to create safe “corridors” to enable the lynx to live in areas divided by major road connections and to ensure work within the hunting community doesn´t bring the animals into conflictive competition over the supply of their principal food source; rabbits.

Saving this magnificent native species from oblivion in the wild is a slow fight against the imprint of humanity, but so much resource is dedicated to making this programme a success, that hopes remain high that the lynx can successfully re-establish sufficient numbers to ensure its survival in the future.