First lynx seen in National Park for 25 years
A lynx has been sighted in Switzerland's National Park for the first time in a quarter of a century.
How the animal came to the park in canton Graubünden and whether it would remain in the area long-term was unclear, the park said on Friday.
The lynx disappeared from the central Alps in the 17th century. Only in the Jura and the Alps did the species survive until the beginning of the 20th century.
The Federal Law on Hunting has afforded the lynx protection since 1962. Since the 1970s, animals from the Carpathian Mountains of Slovakia have been re-introduced into the western Alps and the Jura.
The Federal Environment Agency’s “Swiss Lynx Concept” aims to reintroduce the lynx region by region and join up all the isolated populations living along the Alpine chain.
There are similar projects to reintroduce the beaver and the grey partridge.
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