Guided by trackers, these tourists can even harm their tranquility by “immerating on their territory in the middle of the love season.
Disrespectful tourism
On April 1, 2025, the Association Protect The Lynx, which takes care of protecting lynxes by raising awareness among the general public to their fate, published a press release on Facebook by deploring a new phenomenon noted in the field: the “tourism of the lynx”, a sort of voyeurism that is not very respectful of the animal.
This little recommended type of tourism would come from “Visitors from northern France, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Vosges and Picardie ” according to the publication. These tourists would notably come during the rut period to observe the mating of animals. This crowd weighs on reproduction, explains to France 3 Julie Giraud, co-president of the association.
A photo as closely as possible … at what price?
Lynxs need “peaceful space”And not to be disturbed, especially in this season, so important for the preservation of the species. Julie Giraud specifies that this tourism is not a new phenomenon, and that tourists call on local trackers they remunerate.
Approaching as close as possible to immortalize a meeting with a lynx, tourists leave the trails, and disturb the places of life of the lynx. Julie Giraud recalls that it is preferable to observe a distance of 90 or even 100 meters with the lynx and that the latter also borrow “Cmarked hemins”. It is therefore not necessary to get out of it.
The population of lynx on the scale of Europe and France
According to an article in Ferus, lynx populations are very fragmented and vulnerable on a European scale. It is a protected species at the national level, and is classified “in danger”On the IUCN red list in 2017. Today, we can find it in 11 European countries. There are 9,400 individuals according to LCIE experts, large Carnivore Initiative for Europe.
In France, we can find lynxes in three distinct sites: the Vosges, where the nucleus would be “on the verge of extinction”, despite the reintroduction program in the German Palatinate. An active and more important population found in the Jura. Some individuals have also been identified in the Northern Alps, in connection with those of the Jura.
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