By the turn of the century the species was reduced to two remnant nuclei, in the Sierra Morena and the Doñana area, with no gene flow between them. The immediate cause was collapse of the European rabbit, hit by myxomatosis and then rabbit haemorrhagic disease, compounded by habitat loss and road mortality.
The response was unusually joined up: a captive breeding programme in Spain and Portugal, releases into prepared sites, restoration of scrub-and-clearing mosaic, rabbit restocking, and the fencing and signage of the road sections where most deaths occurred. Population counts have risen by more than an order of magnitude since the low point, and the IUCN moved the species from Critically Endangered to Endangered in 2015 and to Vulnerable in 2024.
What this does not mean is that the species is safe. Its dependence on a single prey animal leaves it exposed to the next rabbit epidemic, road deaths remain the leading known cause of mortality, and the recovered population is still small and genetically narrow.