iberian lynx on verge of extinction

[Guest guest]

if yer gonna drink the bubbly this new years, go fer natural cork bottles!

 

LONDON - Cracking open the New Year bubbly could contribute to the first feline

extinction since the prehistoric Sabre-tooth tiger, wildlife campaigners said.

 

 

Lynxes in Spain and Portugal are becoming critically endangered as their

cork-forest habitat dwindles.

With demand waning for traditional corks in favour of synthetic stoppers in wine

and champagne, farmers are felling the cork forests to make way for more

profitable crops and the pointy-eared Iberian lynx could become one of the

casualties.

 

" Clever propaganda by the manufacturers of screw tops and plastic corks has led

many people to think that cork stoppers are bad for the environment when exactly

the opposite is true, " Beatrix Richards of the London-based Worldwide Fund For

Nature (WWF) said in a statement.

 

" Something radical must happen to save the lynx or it will be gone within the

decade, making it the first feline species extinction since the sabre-tooth

tiger, " said Eduardo Goncalves, author of " The Algarve Tiger " , a book about the

Iberian lynx.

 

The nocturnal cat has a yellow coat dotted with deep brown spots and can grow to

the size of a house dog, some 13 kg (28 lb).

 

Until recently, it was believed that some 1,000 Iberian lynxes - distant cousins

of the American bobcat - prowled the grasslands of southern and central Spain

and Portugal. But in the past year has that figure been revised down to below

200.

 

The WWF says only 30 breeding females are left and rare species of deer and

eagle could also suffer from the destruction of the cork forests, which have

long been a commercial mainstay of the region, producing 15 billion corks per

year.

 

 

 

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE