Monitoring and Distribution of the Lynx Lynx Lynx in the Swiss Jura Mountains

Abstract

Abstract Lynx were reintroduced to the Jura Mountains in the mid-1970s. A first retrospective update of the situation in France and Switzerland was undertaken 10 years later. Since then, real-time collection of occasional observations has been going on in both countries. The monitoring methods have been standardised since the beginning of the 1990s using, among other methods, a network of observers. During 1972-2001, 862 observations were collected in Switzerland and in this paper, these are used to describe the colonisation of the Swiss Jura Mountains and the present distribution of lynx. A comparison with the results of French researchers shows that during the first years of recolonisation, most of the observations were collected in the Swiss part of the Jura Mountains. Today, the French territory has become the core area of the population and includes about ⅔ of the population. The population has recovered after a period of reduced presence at the beginning of the 1990s. The range occupied permanently ...