Our second capturing & translocation season is behind us and we can proudly say it was very successful. A total of seven lynxes were translocated from Carpathian mountains to the Dinarics, all of them males. Five lynxes came from Romania – in 2019 Doru and Goru, in 2020 – Alojzije, Catalin, and Boris, while this year we also translocated the first two animals from Slovakia – Pino and Maks. Doru, Alojzije, and Pino were released in Croatia using hard release (directly into nature), while others spent up to 3 weeks in an enclosure in Slovenia and then were released (soft release).
Even though Doru was released in Croatia he established his territory in Slovenia, but unfortunately since January this year we did not receive any locations from his collar, and we have no information about his destiny. On the map you can see that Goru established his territory in Mala Gora, Katalin is moving in the Rakitna area and Alojzije on southern Velebit, near the location where he was released. Boris, Pino, and Maks are still exploring their new home searching for an appropriate area to establish their territories (so their territories are not visible on the map below).
Translocated lynxes in Slovenia and Croatia. Photo: LIFE Lynx
A lot of people invested enormous energy into this process – capturing animals, quarantine, transport and release, genetic and health analysis, getting all necessary permits, and many other „little details“ needed so everything goes smoothly. However, it was all just the introduction step to the main goal of our project – having offspring of translocated and resident animals, and Goru did it already in the first year! His offspring, a female lynx Mala is a wonderful symbol of a new brighter future for the Dinaric lynx population. We are very optimistic that this year Goru was again productive in Slovenia, and also in Croatia where he spent several weeks during the mating season, but we still have to wait sometime to confirm this.
Until the next capturing season, we are focusing our energy on monitoring of translocated and resident animals, to fine-tune out next steps according to the real-time situation. All translocated lynxes are monitored with GPS-GSM collars, but also several resident lynxes are monitored this way, financed from the LIFE Lynx project and from other projects (Carnivora Dinarica, Monitoring of large Carnivores in National park Plitvice lakes, 3Lynx). At the moment, Mihec, Teja, Mala, and Martina are monitored in Slovenia; Kazo, Stipe, and Rista in Croatia, while Bojan is a transboundary lynx – with territory both in Croatia and Slovenia.
Translocated and resident lynxes territories in Slovenia and Croatia. Photo: LIFE Lynx
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