Research overview: monitoring Iberian lynx recovery against shifting baselines

Tracking whether Iberian lynx recovery is keeping pace with environmental change requires sustained, standardized monitoring of cats, rabbits, and habitat. This overview surveys the census methods, camera-trap surveys, GPS telemetry, scat genetics, and rabbit abundance indices, used to follow the metapopulation, and how those data feed adaptive management and viability models. It reviews the challenge of interpreting trends against moving baselines set by climate, disease, and land-use change. The synthesis frames long-term monitoring as the feedback loop that makes climate-informed lynx conservation possible, allowing managers to detect prey crashes, connectivity failures, or unsuitable conditions early enough to respond before they cascade into population decline.