Pyrenean ibex
Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica (Schinz, 1838)
The Pyrenean ibex, or bucardo, was a mountain goat of the Spanish Pyrenees whose last individual — a female named Celia — was killed by a falling tree on 6 January 2000; in 2003 a cloned bucardo was born and died within minutes, making it the first and so far only species to go extinct twice.
Updated 25 July 2026
- Subspecies of
- Spanish ibex (Capra pyrenaica)
- Population in 1900
- Fewer than 100
- Population in 1990s
- Roughly 6–14 animals
- Last individual
- Celia, died 6 January 2000
- Clone born
- 30 July 2003 — died after several minutes
- Distinction
- The only species to have gone extinct twice
The Pyrenean ibex was one of four subspecies of Spanish ibex, a heavy-horned mountain goat of the high Pyrenees. Hunting and grazing competition reduced it over centuries to a single population in Ordesa National Park, and by the 1990s to a handful of animals. The last, a female called Celia, was found dead beneath a fallen tree on 6 January 2000. Her cells had been preserved a year earlier. In 2003 a cloned bucardo was born by caesarean, breathed for a few minutes, and died from a lung defect — the only time an extinct animal has been brought back, and the only time a species has gone extinct twice.
Key facts at a glance
- The Pyrenean ibex was one of four Spanish ibex subspecies; two survive today, and the Portuguese ibex is also extinct.
- Hunting reduced the population to fewer than 100 animals by 1900, and grazing competition with domestic livestock prevented any recovery.
- The last individual, Celia, was fitted with a radio collar in 1999 and cells were taken from her ear — an unusually forward-looking decision that made everything afterwards possible.
- Celia was killed by a falling tree on 6 January 2000, an entirely random event that a healthy population would have absorbed without notice.
- On 30 July 2003, a cloned Pyrenean ibex was born by caesarean section to a hybrid goat surrogate. It lived several minutes before dying from a malformed lung.
- This makes the Pyrenean ibex the first extinct animal ever cloned, and the only species to have become extinct twice.
Why did the Pyrenean ibex go extinct?
Centuries of hunting did the structural damage. Bucardos were taken for meat and, increasingly through the nineteenth century, as trophies — the males' heavy backswept horns were prized, and trophy hunting selectively removes the largest breeding males. By 1900 fewer than 100 remained. Spain granted legal protection in 1973, but by then the population was confined to Ordesa National Park and was competing for alpine grazing with domestic sheep, goats and cattle, which occupied the best pasture through the summer growing season. Numbers hovered between 6 and 14 through the 1990s. At that size, ordinary chance takes over from any identifiable threat: a small population is destroyed not by hunting or grazing but by whatever happens next, which in Celia's case was a tree.
The species that went extinct twice
In 1999, researchers captured Celia, fitted a radio collar and took a skin biopsy from her ear, freezing the cells in liquid nitrogen. It was speculative work with no defined plan. When she died in January 2000, those cells were the only Pyrenean ibex material left in existence. A Spanish and French team used somatic cell nuclear transfer — the Dolly the sheep technique — inserting Celia's nuclei into enucleated domestic goat eggs and implanting the embryos into hybrid goat surrogates. Of 57 implantations, seven pregnancies established and one went to term. On 30 July 2003 a female Pyrenean ibex was delivered by caesarean section. She had a large solid extra lobe in one lung, could not breathe adequately, and died after several minutes. It remains the only case of an extinct animal being brought back to life, and it lasted less than ten minutes.
What the bucardo clone actually proved
The bucardo is the most cited de-extinction case and the most misread. What it demonstrated is that the nuclear transfer step works: cells frozen from a dead animal can produce a live birth of an extinct subspecies. What it also demonstrated, more importantly, is everything that step does not solve. Cloning efficiency was extremely low — one live birth from 57 implantations. The animal had a fatal developmental defect, a common outcome in cloning. Every clone would have been female, since Celia was, and genetically identical to her, so there was no route to a breeding population from a single individual's cells. And the alpine grazing competition that reduced the bucardo in the first place was unchanged. The bucardo is the strongest available evidence that de-extinction technology is not a substitute for keeping species alive: the one time it worked, it produced an animal that lived for minutes and left the species exactly as extinct as before.
Where it lived
The Pyrenees, on the Spanish–French border
The last one
Celia, killed by a falling tree in Ordesa National Park on 6 January 2000
What caused it
- 1 Centuries of trophy and subsistence hunting
- 2 Competition with domestic livestock for alpine grazing
- 3 A final population too small to withstand ordinary chance events
What this extinction teaches
Below a certain population size, the specific threat stops mattering and random chance finishes the job. A falling tree ended a subspecies. This is why conservation targets minimum viable population sizes in the hundreds, not the last few animals — and why the "we can always clone it back" argument fails on its only real-world test.
Still here — for now
Still facing the same pressure: Markhor
A spectacular wild goat that was pushed to the edge by trophy hunting and livestock competition in the same way — and then recovered, from fewer than 2,500 animals to over 6,000, through community conservancy programmes in Pakistan and Tajikistan. It is the outcome the bucardo did not get.
IUCN status: Near Threatened
Did you know
The frozen ear cells that produced the 2003 clone were taken in 1999 by researchers who had no cloning programme, no funding for one, and no expectation the animal would die within the year. It is the only reason the attempt was possible at all.