Postojnsko-Bistriška Regional Association of Hunting Clubs organized two hunting camps for children in the Notranjska region in September. Hunting Association of Slovenia was invited to presented the LIFE Lynx project to the participants of the camps. For the sixth consecutive year a camps for primary school children were organized in this region. This year’s three-day camp, held by the Hunting club Pivka and two-day camp, held by Hunting clubs Prestranek and Hrenovice, was attended by 30 primary school children from 2. to 9. grade. The topic of this year’s camp was wildlife with a focus on lynx, so the LIFE Lynx project team was also kindly invited to participate.
Educational workshop about large carnivores and presentation of the LIFE Lynx project. Photo: Tina Rupnik
In the first part of the educational workshop, the elementary school children were able to view and touch various materials such as fur, skulls, and footprints of large carnivores. In the second part, we introduced them the LIFE Lynx project and the process of moving lynxes Goru and Doru from Romania into Slovenia and Croatia. The camp participants were also informed about current data on the movement of the two translocated lynxes. They were very interested in the information because lynx named Doru formed his territory in their local area. We also presented ecology, biology, history of the lynx population in Slovenia, the condition of the Dinaric population nowadays, the telemetry method and genetic monitoring of lynx and other wildlife.
The awarding ceremony and the conclusion of the hunting camp. Photo: Tadeja Smolej, LIFE Lynx
The two-hour educational workshop aroused great interest with the children, as they asked a variety of questions about the lynx, the project and the project activities. What they liked most was that they were able to touch the skulls, fur, footprints of large carnivores and learn methods and tools for monitoring of the lynx and other wildlife.
The lynx was also depicted on the official hunting camp T-shirts. Photo: Postojnsko-Bistriška Regional Association of Hunting Clubs