International Lynx Day

Today, June 11, the whole world celebrates International Lynx Day. This holiday was first celebrated in 2018 at the initiative of the European environmental protection project 3Lynx Project.

This tradition was started in order to spread knowledge about the wild cat and raise the issue of its conservation.

At the moment, there are 4 modern species of lynx:

Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx).

Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus).

Bobcat (Lynx rufus).

Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis).

The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) belongs to the fauna of Ukraine.

The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is a beautiful, graceful carnivore from the feline family, considered the largest cat in Europe. Lives in large forest areas, unvisited areas with dense undergrowth, windfall, marshy places. In nature, the lynx inhabits places where "the rooster cannot be heard" – far from populated areas, in the highlands. It is very difficult to meet this carnivore in natural conditions. In Europe, the number of this species is from 8,000 to 9,000 individuals, of which about 2,500 are in the Carpathian region. There are about 500 individuals in Ukraine. Since 1994, when the lynx was included in the Red Book of Ukraine and hunting was banned, the population of the animal has not increased significantly, and little is known about its life.

Each carnivore in the ecosystem has its own niche. The lynx regulates the number of rodents, as well as foxes, carriers of diseases and parasites.

The main factors that negatively affect the number of lynx in Ukraine are:

• decrease in the area of ​​its habitats — high mountain forests, marshy plains of Polissia,

• the negative impact of human management, for example logging, tourism,

• reduction of the feed base, namely small ungulates and mammals,

• trophy illegal hunting (poaching),

• imperfect legislation in the field of prevention and detection of violations of hunting rules.

Mykolaiv Zoo has traditionally been participating in the celebration of this extremely important holiday for many years in a row. After all, lynxes have been kept in our zoo for a long time, they lived on the old territory of the zoo. And more than one generation of lynx lived on the new territory and 69 cubs were born.

In Mykolaiv Zoo lives male Lukashka, born in 2008. He arrived at our zoo on May 27, 2009. We have a pair of lynxes, Lyupin and Zabava, who were born in our zoo. The zoo also houses their daughter Zara, born on May 8, 2022 and her son named Prutya, who was artificially raised.

In honor of the holiday, the staff of the zoo enriched the environment of Prutya, and all visitors who visited had the opportunity to observe his playful behavior. In addition, the visitors had the opportunity to listen to interesting information about the beautiful and graceful predator from the feline family, and the little guests were happy to color the "own lynx" coloring page. Everyone was satisfied!

By keeping and successfully breeding lynxes, our zoo contributes to the preservation of these beautiful animals.

We suggest viewing photos of lynxes from the archive of Mykolaiv Zoo.