A motorist crossed paths with a lynx in the Jura mountains. An exceptional meeting captured on video.
You may not know it, but France is home to 150 lynx on its territory. Saturday May 7, 2022, a motorist had the privilege of meeting one on the road between Bonlieu and Clairvaux ( Jura ), specifies Le Progrès.
Armed with his smartphone, Didier Baltes hastened to immortalize this exceptional scene: “I was driving in the direction of Bonlieu, and I almost ran over this lynx which was on the road after a bend. As I saw that he was staying on the road, I turned around , ”said the Jurassien to the French daily.
Worried for the fate of the feline, the latter tried to make him return to the nearby forest to avoid him being hit. To do this, he honked and the wild animal returned to its natural habitat safely.
And the least we can say is that Didier Baltes will never forget this extraordinary moment: “It’s the first time I’ve seen a lynx so close. It is often said that the lynx looks like a big cat. But I was surprised by its height, one could rather compare it to a leopard”.
Since 2009, the French boreal lynx has been on the list of «endangered species» of the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature). Today, this solitary animal is threatened by road accidents.
This year, three big cats lost their lives after being mowed down by a vehicle, in Haute-Savoie and Franche-Comté. As Le Progrès reminds us, the Ministry of Ecological Transition has put in place a national plan to protect lynx from road collisions.