{"id":250750,"date":"2025-10-30T11:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T11:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/250750\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T11:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T11:04:07","slug":"spanish-photographer-captures-worlds-first-ever-white-iberian-lynx-on-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/250750\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish photographer captures world&#8217;s first ever white Iberian Lynx on camera"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The white ghost of the Mediterranean forest. This is how \u00c1ngel Hidalgo, an amateur nature photographer, has described his latest find while reviewing the images from one of his photo-trapping cameras, placed in the depths of one of Ja\u00e9n&#8217;s mountain ranges in southern Spain. <\/p>\n<p>Hidalgo has managed to record an Iberian lynx with leucism, a genetic condition that causes a partial or total lack of pigmentation in its skin, although not in the eyes, as would occur in the case of albino animals. <\/p>\n<p>According to local media &#8216;Ahora Ja\u00e9n&#8217;, this unprecedented discovery took place on 22 October in the province of Ja\u00e9n.<\/p>\n<p>The place where this specimen of &#8216;Lynx pardinus&#8217; has been recorded in the wild, as attested by the absence of a tracking collar, is kept secret. The Iberian lynx, despite the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/green\/2025\/05\/04\/saved-from-extinction-the-iberian-lynx-now-faces-an-uncertain-future-in-spain\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">conservation efforts <\/a>of the Spanish and Portuguese authorities, is still listed as &#8220;vulnerable&#8221; by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.<\/p>\n<p>The Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition estimates that the animal&#8217;s population exceeded 2,000 in 2023, spread across the two countries of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/green\/2025\/09\/25\/why-portugal-and-spain-are-the-most-vulnerable-european-countries-to-blackouts\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Iberian Peninsula<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The animals have spread to geographical areas such as Sierra Morena, the Montes de Toledo, the Spanish-Portuguese Guadiana basin and Do\u00f1ana, as well as other places where they are being reintroduced that would have been unthinkable until a few years ago, such as the Sierra Palentina.<\/p>\n<p>Endemic only to this region, this big cat is essential for the ecosystems of the Mediterranean landscape and its food chain, as it is a predator of rabbits, its main source of food. <\/p>\n<p>If it were to disappear, it would overpopulate the next level up in the chain and unbalance the whole, given the lack of competition between the two species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The white ghost of the Mediterranean forest. This is how \u00c1ngel Hidalgo, an amateur nature photographer, has described&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[148800,64,63,2929,20558,75,52856,148799,128,338],"class_list":{"0":"post-250750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-andalusia","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-conservation","12":"tag-endangered-species","13":"tag-environment","14":"tag-iberia","15":"tag-iberian-lynx","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}