French Hunter Shoots Radio-collared Lynx

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French Hunter Shoots Radio-collared Lynx

CAT NEWS
Issue 16, Spring 1992

A French hunter has confessed to shooting a radio-collared lynx in the Jura mountains on the border with Switzerland, where the animal had been released.

The decapitated body of the lynx, a male which had been named Miro, was found in October 1991 on the heights of Jougne. The radio transmitter, which was allowing Swiss researchers to track its movements, led them to the collar some distance away.

The culprit was found by French police, who interrogated local hunters. According to a press report, he said his dog had raised an animal, which ran in his direction. Thinking it was a fox he fired instinctively in its direction. When he discovered he had shot a lynx with a radio collar, he cut off the head and threw the collar in a pond.

The man is to appear in court in Besançon, and the Swiss authorities could demand compensation for the loss.

Between 50 and 100 lynx are believed to exist in the Alps and Jura mountains, the progeny of about 16 released in the early 1970s.

Radio tracking in the Jura involved 973 localisations during 1991 of seven different lynx -- one male, four females and two female young. But by the end of December only three lynx were still being located, the two adult females and a sub-adult female. Apart from the shooting of Miro, one lynx was killed by a car when crossing a road, one left its normal range and could not be located, and the transmitter of another failed.

Two of the females were known to have had young during the year, and each had one with them at the end of the year.

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