Lynx offspring at Dählhölzli in Bern

The cubs were born in mid-May. The experienced breeding female came to Bern from Ostrava Zoo in 2023. She had already given birth to twelve cubs there. Numbers 13 and 14 followed at Dählhölzli, as the zoo wrote in a press release on Wednesday.

The two little lynxes will undergo a strict behavioral test in the autumn, when they are between eight and ten months old, the zoo added. The results of the test and the health of the young animals will determine whether they are suitable for a reintroduction project in Germany.

The Carpathian lynxes at Bern Zoo are part of a breeding program. In the wild, the animals suffer from genetic impoverishment, as was also reported. The long-term goal is "to establish a viable, genetically diverse population of Carpathian lynx from the Carpathians to the Jura, the Western Alps and the Dinaric Mountains."

To achieve this goal, lynx are being relocated from the wild and lynx are being released into the wild, bred and reared in zoos under special conditions.