On November 24, the Iberian lynx was at the Museum of Natural History and Science, in Lisbon, under the scope of the I Journeys of Environment – GERA, organized by the Youth Association of Science. Along with it, bats, amphibians and plants were made known to 35 participants. Besides college students, some families with children also joined us at this day devoted to the Environment.

The morning started with the wonderful world of Bats, with Hugo Rebelo (post-doc at CIBIO/University of Porto and University of Bristol), giving the talk ‘From fear to fascination: a journey through the world of bats!’, thus enlightening all listeners about the many myths and facts involving these important animals.
From the unknown bats, we went up to the more popular Iberian lynx. In a talk entitled ‘Lynx Programme: the work of LPN for the conservation of the Iberian lynx in Portugal’, Filipa Loureiro (member of the technical team of Habitat Lince Abutre LIFE project) talked about the efforts made by the Lynx Programme of LPN (since 2004) to contribute to the conservation of this threatened felid. After the exhibition of a short video about the Iberian lynx, with which everyone got to know better this species, Filipa Loureiro talked about several measures undertaken to reduce the Iberian lynx main threats in Portugal. LPN’s current LIFE project, Habitat Lince Abutre, earned special emphasis, as well as all the other measures concerning this threatened cat conservation.

In the afternoon, we talked about the amphibians. ‘Amphibians – a life of fragilities’ was the talk given by Professor Rui Rebelo (University of Lisbon), to raising awareness among the audience about these fragile animals. And because plants are also part of our ecosystems, to end the day, and before a walk through the botanical garden with Raquel Barata, Professor Maria Amélia Loução presented the talk ‘Botanical Gardens: what they are, what they do, where are they going?’.
After each talk, there was time to get everyone’s questions answered. Throughout the day, all participants were given the opportunity to freely visit the Museum of Natural History and Science (access gently granted by the own Museum).

Ended the day, the balance was highly positive. ‘The Journeys were, overall, a great success!’, told us the coordinators of the Group of Environmental Resources and Studies of the Youth Association of Science, Ana Teixeira e João Maurício, reason why this Association is, once more, to be congratulated for the initiatives it promotes to help raising people’s awareness for Science in Portugal.


The team of the project thanks everyone who joined us in this event, for their presence and interest demonstrated, as well as the Youth Association of Science for their invitation and the Museum of Natural History and Science for having provided a room for the event.