610 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



Ibex of Central Spain; Credos Ibex. Cabra monies (Sp.) 



CAPRA PYRENAICA VICTORIAE Cabrera 



Capra pyrenaica victoriae Cabrera, Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1911, p. 975, 1911. 



("Madrigal de la Vera, on the southern slope of the Sierra de Gredos," 



Province of Caceres, Spain.) 

 FIGS.: Chapman and Buck, 1910, pis. facing pp. 140, 152 (figs. A, C), 216, 



220; Cabrera, 1911, pis. 53, 54, p. 968, fig. 195 A, p. 970, fig. 196; Cabrera, 



1914, pi. 19, p. 312, fig. 81 B. 



This Ibex is "in danger of disappearing and worthy of special 

 protection" (Director General de Montes, Pesca y Caza, in litt., 

 1933). 



"An intermediate form, in size and in the extent of the black 

 markings, between C. p. pyrenaica and C. p. hispanica, rather 

 browner than hispanica in the summer coat, and with horns similar 

 in size to those of that race, but comparatively broader and flatter." 

 Height at shoulder, 700 mm. Length of horn on outside curve, up 

 to 815 mm. (Cabrera, 1911, pp. 974-976.) 



The range includes "the Sierra de Gredos and, in the past, the 

 ridges of El Barco, Bejar and Francia, and the hills of Toledo." 

 The subspecies is "at present reduced to a single colony in the 

 highest peaks of Gredos." (Cabrera, 1911, p. 966, and map, 

 p. 965.) 



The following information is derived from the excellent account 

 by Chapman and Buck (1910, pp. 139-146) : 



In the Spanish ibex Spain possesses ... a game-animal of the first rank. . . . 



Since we first wrote on this subject in 1893 the Spanish ibex has passed 

 through a crisis that came perilously near extirpation. Up to the date named, 

 and for several years later, none of the great landowners of Spain . . . had 

 cherished either pride or interest in the Spanish wild-goat. Some were dimly 

 conscious of its existence on their distant domains; but that was all. . . . 

 These mountain-ranges are so remote and so elevated as often to be almost 

 inaccessible .... Their sole human inhabitants are a segregated race of 

 goat-herds, every man of them a born hunter, accustomed from time immemo- 

 rial to kill whenever opportunity offered and that regardless of size, sex, or 

 season. That the ibex should have survived such persecution by hardy moun- 

 taineers bespeaks their natural cunning. Their survival was due to two causes 

 first, the antiquated weapons employed, but, more important, the astuteness 

 of the game and the "defence" it enjoyed in the stupendous precipices and 

 snow-fields of those sierras .... 



But no wild animal . . . can withstand for ever perpetual, skilled human 

 persecution. During the early years of the present century the Spanish ibex 

 appeared doomed beyond hope. . . . 



We rejoice to add that at this eleventh hour a new era of existence has 

 been secured to Capra hispanica .... The change is due to graceful action 

 by the landowners in certain great mountain-ranges .... 



In certain sierras . . . the owners have undertaken the preservation of the 

 ibex partly from their realising the tangible asset this game-beast adds to 

 the value of barren mountain-land, and partly in view of the legitimate eport 

 that an increase in stock may hereafter afford. 



