On Tuesday, January 18, 2022, the LIFE Lynx project team, led by a research team from the Biotechnical Faculty, Department of Forestry and Renewable Forest Resources, University of Ljubljana, and Ljubljana ZOO successfully captured a young lynx in the Goteniška gora area in the Kočevje region. It is one of last year’s four kittens of the female lynx Petra, which we have been monitoring with a telemetry collar since March 2021.
Lynx Petra with her four cubs, photographed in December 2021. Photo: LIFE Lynx
The captured lynx, who was named Bor, after the nearby village of Borovec, weighed 10.5 kg and is in good physical condition. We also filmed Bor and his siblings with the camera traps, used to monitor lynx in Slovenia.
For Bor, the time of independence is slowly approaching, so it will be interesting to see where he would establish his territory. Compared to females, it is known that males go further away of their mother’s home range during the dispersal period, which is also one of the strategies that prevents inbreeding with close relatives.
Lynx Bor during tranquilization. Photo: Tilen Hvala, LIFE Lynx
Fitting a telemetry collar. Photo: Lan Hočevar, LIFE Lynx