The lynx currently occurs in three reintroduced populations in Germany: in eastern Bavaria, in the Harz Mountains and in the Palatinate Forest. Status assessment is performed according to monitoring standards which were agreed upon nationwide, and the status found is summarised in yearly distribution maps based on a 10 km × 10 km EEA reference grid. The lynx population in Bavaria exists since the 1990s, but exhibits only very slow expansion, mainly due to a high level of illegal killing. The population in the Harz Mountains is spreading and individual males have migrated to Brandenburg and Bavaria. In the Palatinate Forest a reintroduction programme started in 2015; in the meantime, wild-born lynx kittens are documented regularly. In Baden-Wuerttemberg there has been consistent evidence of individual male lynx which immigrated mainly from Switzerland. Immigration by females is not very likely in view of habitat fragmentation. To secure the long-term viability of the lynx in Germany the existing lynx populations need to be connected on a Central European scale. For this purpose, the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) commissioned a conceptual framework coordinated nationwide, which will outline suitable measures to reach favourable conservation status.