A partnership between Portuguese authorities and a company that manages a traffic app is developing a warning system for approaching Iberian lynxes on some roads in the Algarve and Alentejo to reduce the mortality of these animals..
João Alves, Conservation of the Institute for Nature and Forestry (ICNF), explained that the initiative – integrated into the LIFE Lynxconnect project – brings this body together, to Portugal Infrastructure (IP) and the Waze platform, who together want to minimize lynx being run over on the roads, one of the main factors in mortality of this species due to human causes.
For now, the system is in operation on National Roads (IN) 122 and 123 and in the Complementary Itinerary (IC) 27, alerts are triggered almost in real time, when animals enter virtual territory areas with 200 meters wide, adjacent to roads, on both sides of the carriageway.
IN 122: Crosses the districts of Beja and Faro, with the purpose of being the alternative to the N2, and Leste. Because of the strategic position of this road, and consequent economic development, a N122 has been subject to improvements, It is even reclassified as IC27 between Alcoutim and Monte Francisco.
IN 123: It was intended as a connection between its sisters N120 (to the West) in Odemira, e a N122 (to the East) near Mértola, passing through the N2, in Castro Verde. Comply, longitudinally, the southern part of the Beja District.
The lynx population in the Iberian Peninsula is progressively moving away from the risk of extinction and exceeded two thousand specimens in 2023, twice as much as 2020. The census carried out that year reveals that in the Guadiana Valley there are 291 Bobcats.
News: Lidador Notícias/ Jornal de Notícias
