Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM)

Only males were used in this study, since at the time most females had cubs, and the study would compromise the cubs’ reintroduction training. The males were chosen considering their ability to endure two months of being restricted to the husbandry area (Fig. 2), and their location in the enclosure area (Fig. 1). Some males were sharing enclosures with females, thus making them unsuitable candidates. The experimental subjects were 4 Iberian Lynx males: Drago (8 years old), Enebro (7 years old), Foco and Fresco (both 6 years old). The males that displayed the highest frequency of stereotypies and/or other abnormal behaviours, Enebro and Fresco, were placed in the test group (and were exposed to the synthetic analogue of the pheromone) and the ones that displayed the least stereotypies, Drago and Foco, were placed in the control group (only exposed to the placebo). The location of their enclosures within CNRLI is represented in Figure 1, although the reader should bear in mind that the subjects only had access to the smaller section of the enclosure, the husbandry area (Fig. 2).