For some years now larger wild animals such as lynxes, wolves, and bears have been spreading out across Europe as existing populations grow and animals are resettled. Yet some populations are still endangered. A research team headed by the Freiburg conservation biologist PD Dr. Marco Heurich and the landscape ecologist PD Dr. Stephanie Kramer-Schadt of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research Berlin concludes that the illegal hunting of lynxes reintroduced into the border areas of Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria is having a major effect on their numbers. Their study, commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund Germany, has been published in the journal Biological Conservation.