Breeding

Press release Nationalpark Harz, 07.10.2025:

After more than a year of planning, organising and tense waiting, it finally happened: seven-year-old lynx Rikki from Kyiv Zoo in the Ukrainian capital arrived in Germany at the end of September. She is eagerly awaited in the Harz Mountains: after a four-week quarantine at the Sachsenhagen Wildlife and Species Conservation Station near Hanover, the cat is to move into the large outdoor enclosure at the Harz National Park on the Rabenklippe, where she will produce offspring as part of a European conservation breeding programme. Her future partner, a male lynx from Switzerland, arrived in August and has now settled into his new home.

On a Friday morning, Ole Anders, lynx expert at the Harz National Park Authority, received the welcome news that Rikki the lynx had arrived safely in Sachsenhagen after a three-day journey from Kyjv via Poland to Germany. Following the long transport by the Dutch specialist company Crossborder Animal Services, she appeared to be in excellent health. ‘I am more than relieved. It was a nerve-wracking time. The biggest challenge was getting the animal to Germany. Air transport was impossible due to the war situation, and transport by land was very difficult to organise,’ he reports.

Initially, it was necessary to overcome bureaucratic hurdles in connection with the export of the protected species from Ukraine, obtain the necessary documents and deal with the organisational problems of transporting animals from the war-torn country. Then, when crossing the borders between Ukraine, Poland and Germany, which turned the lynx's journey into a thriller for those involved, especially during the final stage. Due to problems and language difficulties during customs clearance, apparently caused by insufficient paperwork for the border authorities, hours of phone calls, emails and messenger messages flew back and forth between Geert Wijnands, the head of the transport company, who was sitting in the cockpit of the transporter himself, the zoo in Kyiv, Ole Anders, the border authorities and the responsible German veterinary office until it was finally clear that Luchsin Rikki would be allowed to cross the EU border into Poland and then also the German-Polish border.

Available female lynxes are extremely rare in conservation breeding programmes

The breeding recommendation for the Ukrainian lynx had already been issued by the studbook keeper at Bern Zoo on 3 September 2024, more than a year ago – that's how long it ultimately took to prepare for the transport. All animals in this conservation breeding programme (EEP) are listed with the studbook keeper, including the Swiss male. ‘On paper, the two animals are a good genetic match,’ explains Ole Anders. The requirements: it should be a subspecies-pure breeding line with a low degree of inbreeding. However, it is anything but easy to form a breeding pair: ‘Females are extremely rare in the EEP, almost all of them are already paired up,’ says the Harz lynx expert. So it was very fortunate that a suitable female lynx was available for the Harz at all.

‘We contacted the zoo in Kyiv, and they immediately agreed to an international cooperation,’ he reports. Despite the difficult and stressful conditions caused by the war, it was important to those responsible in Ukraine to participate in the European species conservation project. As the transport date approached, time was running out and important documents were still missing, the Harz Lynx Project team received support from former MEP Viola von Cramon, who, on the sidelines of political consultations in Ukraine, asked the responsible minister directly for support for the species conservation project, thus ensuring that the crucial documents were issued at short notice.

‘It is a great honour for Harz National Park and the Harz Lynx Project to be included in the conservation breeding programme by the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA),’ emphasises Anders. ‘We had the support of recognised experts. The large, natural enclosure at Rabenklippe was certainly a decisive factor in this.’ Breeding lynxes is new territory for the National Park administration, but since this year, animal keeper Paul Bridge, a proven expert, has joined the team. Bridge was previously employed at Osnabrück Zoo, where he worked with predators such as hyenas and wolverines, among others.

Lynx Rikki was born in 2018. She has not yet had any offspring. After quarantine, she will initially be housed in a small enclosure in the Harz Mountains to acclimatise, still separated from her future partner by a fence. ‘To get to know each other,’ says Ole Anders. ‘If they get along, they will be moved to a shared enclosure.’ Then it's a matter of waiting. Mating season for lynxes is in early spring.