ENDANGERED. This handout picture by the Iberian Lynx Conservation Breeding Programme dated May 03, 2008 shows newly born lynx cubs at the captive breeding center of the Donana National Park, southern Spain. Within 50 years, climate change will probably wipe out the world's most endangered feline, the Iberian lynx, even if the world meets its target for curbing carbon emissions, biologists said on Sunday, July 21. The gloomy forecast, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, says that without a dramatic shift in conservative strategy, the charismatic little wildcat seems doomed. The lynx -- Latin name Lynx pardinus -- grows to about a meter (3.25 feet) in length, weighs up to 15 kilos (33 pounds), and is characterized by its spotted beige fur, pale yellow eyes and tufted ears and cheeks. Only around 250 of the animals live in the wild, holed up in two regions in southern Spain, the Sierra Morena and the Donana National Park, according to estimates published last year. In just half a century, its range has shrunk from 40,600 square kilometers (15,600 square miles) to 1,200 sq. km. (463 square miles), driven by efforts to wipe out the rabbit, its main food, as well as poaching and fragmentation of its grassland-and-forest mixed habitat. The new study, led by Miguel Araujo of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid, models the impact of rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns on habitat, rabbits and lynxes. On current trends, the changes will occur too fast for the lynx to adapt, it suggests. Read more http://www.rappler.com/science-nature/34462-iberian-lynx-climate-change-spain
