Iberian Lynx, World's Rarest Cat, Is Castrated To Keep Population Growing

Scientists have castrated one of the few remaining female Iberian lynx in the world, after determining the cat could not successfully conceive and give birth naturally, according to Science World Report.

After the lynx suffered through two emergency Cesarean sections, and it was determined she was not suitable to have any more offspring, scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research opted to remove her ovaries and collect the embryos, preserving them for future use.

There are only an estimated 200 or less Iberian lynx left on the planet.

While operating on the cat, named Azahar, the scientific team discovered that lynx embryos develop much slower than those belonging to domestic cats.

Since Azahar had mated a week before the procedure, it was anticipated the embryos would have made it to the uterus. Instead, they were still in the oviducts.

Azahar was not the first Iberian lynx castrated by the group in the name of species re-population.

Another female cat, Saliega, was 12 years old and had already given birth to 16 cubs when she developed a mammary tumor. In that case, the embryos taken from her ovaries were unfertilized.

There are several efforts in the world to find successful new ways to help the lynx community grow.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, an Iberian lynx typically has a litter of three cubs, though at least one often dies after weaning, a result of the cats' waning food supply and loss of natural habitat.

It's estimated the species has lost 80 percent of its total habitat range to human development.

"The Iberian lynx is a naturally vulnerable species because of its dependence on only one prey species, the rabbit, and its narrow habitat spectrum. The dramatic decline in rabbit populations, caused by habitat changes...since the 1950s and Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease since the late 1980s, has therefore had a direct impact on lynx numbers," explains a post at icunredlist.org, a conservation website. "Over-hunting of rabbits and other human activities have further compounded the problems of prey scarcity. In recent years, prey scarcity has been compounded by high rates of non-natural mortality and habitat destruction and fragmentation."

Conservationists hope the fertilized eggs extracted from Azahar can be implanted into a surrogate mother of a closely related species, like a Eurasian lynx.