'Opilano', the name chosen by Villafranca de Córdoba students for one of the three lynxes that will be released in the Guadalmellato area

With this name, they recall a Visigoth warrior who is shown on a slab as Villafranca’s first resident

The students of the Teresa Comino de Villafranca de Córdoba primary school (Córdoba), accompanied by the Provincial Delegate for the Environment and Territorial Planning, Francisco de Paula Algar, the town mayor, Francisco Palomares, and Life+Iberlince project personnel, chose the name 'Opilano' to 'baptize' the seventh Iberian lynx specimen that will be released this season in the Andalusian region, thus concluding the #BautizaUnLince campaign.

Specifically, they named one of the three specimens to be released into the wild in the Guadalmellato valley (Córdoba) over the next few months. The male 'Opilano' is the son of Hommer and Esparto and, like all other specimens who will be released this year, he was born in the spring of 2017.

Opilano concludes the list of seven names for specimens that will be released in 2018 in the two reintroduction areas of Andalusia, Guarrizas (Jaén) and Guadalmellato – a list comprised of citizens’ proposals through social networks and the Life+Iberlince project email (such as 'Orisón', 'Ofelia', 'Obulco' and 'Oxyura'), as well as suggestions by schoolchildren from territories in Cordoba and Jaén where the Iberian lynx is present, such as 'Omeya', 'Olavide' and 'Opilano'.

This season, two males and one female will be released in the Guadalmellato Valley, where the first Iberian lynx releases began in 2010.

This reintroduction area was not chosen by accident, since this area, along with the Guarrizas valley (Jaén), is renowned for the quality of its habitat; its high density of rabbit populations; and a strong social support for reintroduction, among which we highlight the collaboration of estate owners and hunting societies that manage the land where the bulk of the lynx population is concentrated.