In October, four members of The Missing Lynx Project spent a week in Germany, visiting three active lynx reintroduction projects. This exciting trip gave us a chance to meet and learn from people who are directly involved in lynx reintroductions in different areas of Germany.  

We visited the Baden-Württemberg project (with reintroductions based in the Black Forest in south-west Germany), the Thuringia project (with reintroductions based in the Thuringian Forest in central Germany) and the Saxony project (‘RELynx Saxony’, with reintroductions based in the Ore and Elbe Sandstone Mountains on the border with the Czech Republic).  

The three projects that we visited are making an important contribution to the future of lynx in Germany. By reintroducing up to 20 individual lynx over 3-4 years, each project aims to establish a new breeding population of lynx in their project area. New breeding populations will improve the connections between existing lynx populations in Germany, allowing for more exchange of genetics between them, leading to healthier and more resilient populations. 

Lynx reintroduction projects have been taking place across Europe since the 1970s, with the aim of returning lynx to their former homes. More than 50 years of experience has led to a wealth of expert knowledge on lynx reintroduction. By visiting these three projects, the aim of this trip was to build and strengthen relationships with lynx reintroduction teams in Germany and learn first-hand from individuals delivering such projects on the ground. The Missing Lynx Project team also gained more insight into the whole process of reintroduction, from sourcing individuals to ensuring they are ready for reintroduction into the wild, then tracking and monitoring them after release.

Baden-Württemberg Project 

We started the trip in the south-west of Germany, visiting the zoo in the city of Karlsruhe, before driving south to Freiburg to meet the Baden-Württemberg project team in the Forest Research Institute office. Karlsruhe Zoo is a partner on the Baden-Württemberg project, and here we met with the veterinarian, who introduced us to a breeding pair of lynx in an enclosure. We discussed practicalities and considerations around the first stage of any reintroduction: sourcing lynx through captive breeding programmes or capturing animals from the wild.  

We then visited the ‘coordination enclosure’ under construction close to the zoo. This is where lynx will be transferred at around 6-8 months old and held for several months with minimal human contact, so they remain wild before being reintroduced. At the project office in Freiburg, we met with two ecologists from the team for a discussion about their project’s structure and their practical experiences of monitoring lynx in the region. 

During the last 20 years, individual male lynx have repeatedly travelled to Baden-Württemberg. By releasing 6-10 lynx (particularly females) into the Black Forest in Baden-Württemberg over the next four years, the project aims to develop a breeding population of lynx, encouraging these males to stay. This population could then connect with neighbouring lynx populations in the Jura Arc, Palatinate Forest and Vosges Mountains, improving the collective resilience of lynx in the region. 

Lynx Thuringia Project  

From Freiburg, we travelled north to the Thuringian Forest. Here, we met a member of the project team at the ‘Wildcat Village’, a dedicated breeding and visitor facility for both wildcat and lynx in the south of the Hainich National Park. At the Wildcat Village, the project has a breeding enclosure currently housing two lynx, as well as a coordination enclosure, which was the first of its kind in Europe. 

From the Wildcat Village, we travelled into the Thuringian Forest, where we used lynx tracking data to pinpoint a search area for a possible lynx kill. We then visited a ‘soft release enclosure’ in the depths of the forest. In a soft release reintroduction, the lynx lives in an enclosure at the release site for a short time to adjust to their surroundings before being released. After release, they can return to the enclosure if they need to, until they feel more comfortable exploring their new forest home. 

As with Baden-Württemberg, individual male lynx have reached the Thuringian Forest from a neighbouring population - in this case in the Harz Mountains. The goal for this project is to release 20 lynx between 2024 and 2027, sourcing them from a combination of wild lynx from healthy populations elsewhere and from captive-breeding. This should provide these wandering males with an incentive to stay. This will help develop a breeding population in the Thuringian Forest, improving connectivity between lynx populations in the Harz Mountains and the Bavarian Forest.

RELynx Saxony Project 

Finally, we travelled south-east into the state of Saxony, where we met two members of the RELynx Saxony project team. We learnt about their project’s structure, history and monitoring, before going out into the field to search for lynx kills at two different sites: one in the Saxony forest and the other across the border in the Czech forest. In the Czech Republic, we were joined by the project’s wildlife detection dog, who was incredibly skilled at searching for signs of lynx and their kills.

This project aims to release 20 lynx, which would help connect the Harz Mountains and the Bavarian-Bohemian-Austrian lynx populations. 

Across these three projects, since December 2023, 10 individual lynx have been released into the wild in Germany so far. It has been useful to see first-hand how important careful planning, adaptive approaches and strong teamwork are to the success of projects like this. We would like to thank the three project teams who hosted us in Germany and shared their time and knowledge with us. It will be exciting to follow the progress of these projects and hopefully their success into the future. 

We’re also excited to take what we’ve learned and apply it to The Missing Lynx Project, sharing our findings within focus groups and in discussions with stakeholders. All of this information will help us examine the question of whether lynx could one day return to Britain.