Rabbit in Doñana emergency plan

Life+Iberlince’s Project has been working on the control of the rabbit population’s evolution in every action area: Portugal, Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha, Murcia and Andaluzia. This control is much narrower in the Iberian-lynx’s distribution areas.

The Life+Iberlince’s project monitoring teams confirmed, by routine samples, the raising of a new strain of this viral hemorrhagic rabbit’s disease in the whole lynx’s distribution area, between the end of 2011 and the spring of 2012. As a consequence it started to be performed an emergency plan to reduce as much as possible the negative effects of the disease.

In the lynx’s population of Doñana-Aljarafe concrete case, the emergency plan was released in the beginning of 2013 and remains in effect until now. The rabbits reinforcement population’s aims are done in the creation fences built within previous Life programs. They are:

- Avoid the loss of breeding territories and movements to large animal’s distances in search of food.
- Reduce the effects of the drop in rabbit populations on the productivity of the territorial female lynx.
- To comply with the commitments acquired through collaboration agreements with private properties and local hunters associations. Within these collaborative arrangements are also contemplated an action plan to improve the habitat for wild rabbit.

Since the beginning of 2013, until the end of 2014, 4.402 wild rabbits were released in the Doñana-Aljarafe lynx’s population in about 45 creation fences, in and out of the Natural Park, integrated in the territories of 14 iberian-lynx’s adult female.

To this action it has to be added the OAPN’s work, insert under the Iberlince’s project – which is one of its partners – with 3 built fences, 103 wakes and released 309 rabbits.

The restocking actions on the creation fences are programmed to this year, as in previous years.
For now, it is very difficult to measure the effect of this action on the productivity of 2013 and 2014 litters , since the number of variations of this fraction are common population and would need also an area of "control" without reinforcements to test the rabbit what would have happened if it had not been restocked. However, it may be noted that the result of these works in 2014 it was possible to maintain at least six territorial adult females with rabbit densities below the minimum required for the species. These animals are probably able to preserve their territories thanks to this extra supply of rabbits, without which probably would have occurred dispersive movements.

In spite of the trophic situation faced by the population of Doñana - Aljarafe, these first positive results in the continuous process of evolution, encouraged to continue with the work already developed, waiting to meet up the true extent of the medium and long term and possible solutions for this new problem.