Breeding

Press release, Harz National Park, 24 June 2026:

Staff at Harz National Park are delighted to welcome new arrivals: “Rikki”, a female lynx in the breeding programme, who has been living with the male lynx “Reto” in a large outdoor enclosure at Harz National Park since last year, has given birth to three kittens. Although the pair showed great interest in each other during the recent mating season, no mating was observed despite the close supervision of keeper Paul Bridge and the various cameras in the lynx enclosure. It therefore remained unclear until the very end whether offspring could be expected. Since the end of April, Paul Bridge had been reporting on the female lynx’s increasing body size, and she had also become increasingly secretive and cautious.

Two nesting boxes, specially constructed by the National Park Workshop, had been set up in the enclosure. Although Rikki inspected them closely – even carrying food into them – she ultimately ignored the wooden structures. In mid-May, however, Bridge heard the sounds of a lynx cub coming from the dense and inaccessible vegetation behind one of the boxes, and was able to observe a cub for the first time a few days later.

The cubs are to be released into the wild at a later date

The Harz National Park participates in the Lynx Conservation Breeding Programme (EEP) run by the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA). As part of the so-called EEP (EAZA Ex-situ Programme), lynx are bred and reared under conditions that enable them to be used in future reintroduction projects. Rikki and Reto’s cubs will therefore grow up in an enclosure that is inaccessible to the public and cannot be viewed from the outside. Human contact is kept to a minimum. Even when being fed wild game, the lynx cubs will not be able to make a direct connection between the food being provided and the animal keepers. In early 2027, the plan is to transfer them to one of the reintroduction projects currently underway, for example in the Thuringian Forest, the Ore Mountains or the Black Forest. “In doing so, the Harz National Park is once again making an important contribution to the reintroduction and urgently needed genetic stabilisation of the lynx population in Germany and beyond. This is a prerequisite for the long-term survival of this native species, which is still very rare outside the Harz and was once extinct,” said National Park Director Dr Roland Pietsch. The final destination will be decided by a “distribution platform” involving the EAZA and international lynx experts.

Last September, the long-planned yet challenging transport of Rikki from the zoo in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, to the Harz National Park came to a successful conclusion. The female lynx was reunited with her mate, Reto, in the national park’s enclosure; he had been brought in from the Swiss La Garenne Wildlife Park to complete the breeding pair.