GENEVA — Dozens of European mammals, including the Iberian lynx, the Saiga antelope and the Mediterranean monk seal, face extinction unless immediate measures are taken to protect them, a conservation group said Tuesday. Thirty-five of the continent’s 231 mammal species fall into the threatened category, according to a report published by the World Conservation Union. The 60-page report commissioned by the European Union warns that 27 percent of mammal species show a fall in numbers, compared with 8 percent that are increasing. The report’s nine categories include ‘least concern,’ ‘vulnerable,’ ‘endangered’ and ‘extinct.’ The group said historical evidence shows two European land mammals – a rabbit-like creature called the Sardinian pika and the aurochs, an ancestor to domestic cattle species – have been driven to extinction in the last 500 years, while the gray whale has disappeared from European waters. The five most critically endangered European mammals – the saiga antelope, Mediterranean monk seal, North Atlantic right whale, Bavarian pine vole and Iberian lynx – could soon follow, the report said. There are only two small populations of Iberian lynx in Spain today, totaling about 150, and the number of Mediterranean monk seals has shrunk […]