"This is an emergency situation," Eduardo Goncalves, president of SOS Lynx, a conservation group which is fighting to save the animal, told AFP.

"We are on the verge of the first-ever extinction of a big cat species in modern times."

There are only some 120 of the pointy-eared felines currently living in the wild in southwestern Spain and Portugal, down from 3,000 in the 1960s, according to SOS Lynx studies.

While illegal hunting of the leopard-spotted cats -- a cousin of the lion, tiger and leopard -- has contributed to the fall in numbers, Goncalves said the main problem has been the drop in the population of wild rabbits, the lynx's main prey.

Diseases have wiped out large numbers of rabbits in recent years and now the wildfires have destroyed thousands of hectares (acres) of pastures and scrubland which are their feeding ground.

"The main problem of the lynx, a lack of prey, has just got much worse," said Gonclaves.

Forestry officials said Friday wildfires have devastated some 336,000 hectares (830,000 acres) of forest and scrubland so far this year according to a provisional estimate, much of it since the end of July.

If the estimate is confirmed, this will be the largest area of Portugal hit by forest fires since figures began to be collated in 1980.

The destroyed areas include huge parts of the mountains and cork oak forests of southern Portugal that form the natural habitat of the Iberian lynx, sometimes referred to as Europe's tiger.

The wildfires, which were fueled by a heatwave that affected much of Europe, also reduced to ashes more than 20,000 hectares of pasture, according to preliminary estimates.

There are only a handful of Iberian lynx, which can weigh up to 23 kilograms (28 pounds), in captivity.

The Spanish government set up a breeding centre for the cat at a nature reserve in southern Spain in 1992 but a breeding progam has yet to be set up because authorities are still divided on how to capture the animals in the wild.

Since the lynx populations that exist in the wild are becoming increasingly isolated from each other, scienitists say in-breeding has increased and this has made the animals more vulnerable to disease.

TERRA.WIRE