CLM schoolchildren learn about the importance of conserving the Iberian lynx

Castilla-La Mancha students learn about the importance of conserving the Iberian lynx in the Iberian Peninsula and, from the point of view of the species’ conservation, the relevance of it once again being present in areas where it was historically present and eventually disappeared.

As part of the awareness activities carried out for this purpose, the Life+Iberlince project met with schoolchildren from Santa Cruz de Mudela and San Pablo de los Montes several times in recent days, in order to make them (among the municipality’s educational centres) the ones responsible for choosing the names of the cubs born in their area, last spring.

The schoolchildren must choose the names of the cubs born in 2017, which this year begin with the letter "O".

Life+Iberlince project specialists went to La Inmaculada primary school, Cervantes primary school in Santa Cruz de Mudela, and the Nuestra Señora de Gracia primary school in San Pablo de Los Montes, to propose a list of possible names and let them be the ones who finally name to the young lynxes from Castilla-La Mancha.

The schoolchildren are from the Iberian lynx reintroduction area’s municipalities in Castilla-La Mancha, Eastern Sierra Morena and Montes de Toledo, where the Iberian lynx has regained a stable presence thanks to the work carried out to recover the species in the Ciudad Real and Toledo provinces.

During this activity, Life+Iberlince project specialists made it possible for schoolchildren to learn various aspects of the Iberian lynx through the process known as "naming", in which they increasingly learn more about the species’ biology and behaviour, as well as several perilous situations that threaten it.

They were also able to learn more about the transnational work carried out by the project, covering Spain and Portugal, as well as the achievements regarding the species’ endangered level, which allowed the species to be upgraded from "critically endangered" to "endangered" once it reached 500 specimens in the Iberian Peninsula.

The students were also able to review, in a participatory, playful and graphic way, characteristics of the relationships between specimens who share the same habitat; the lynx’s importance as a territorial species for balancing other predatory populations; this while highlighting the representative value of this singular species, as it promotes biodiversity in the areas it inhabits.

The Life+Iberlince project would like to thank the managing bodies of the participating schools and their teachers for their collaboration with the project, welcoming us in their educational spaces to bring this initiative to their entire student body.