On Tuesday June 13 2023, the fifth (last) lynx in the ULyCA2 (Urgent Lynx Conservation Actions) project was released in the Tarvisio forest. Attempts to return the lynx to the Italian Julian Alps date back to 1975, when Italians relocated two lynxes in Gran Paradiso National Park, but unfortunately the relocation was unsuccessful. In 2013 members of Progetto Lince Italia launched the ULyCA project in the framework of which in 2014 two lynxes were relocated from Switzerland to the Friuli Venezia Giulia region. The lynxes presence immediately proved successful, helping to increase the diversity of the population, but that was not enough, so in 2017 we started international LIFE Lynx project. The main objective of the project is to prevent another extinction of the Dinaric-SE Alpine lynx population and its long-term conservation. As part of the LIFE Lynx project, 18 lynxes have already been translocated to Slovenia and Croatia from Romania and Slovakia, of which six were translocated in the Slovenian Alps. In 2022 in Italy, the ULyCA2 project was revived and five lynxes were released this year in the same region as in 2014. First two were two Swiss females called Sofia and Margy, followed by the release of Romanian lynxes male Jago and female Talia. The last one to ran to the Italian Alps was lynx named Karlo, an orphan from Croatian Dinarids.
Relocations of lynxes in the SE Alps are a joint effort of the two projects; LIFE Lynx and ULyCA2. We all hope that this lynx stepping-stone population in the Alps will establish a connection with the lynxes in the Alpine part of neighboring countries and maintain the Dinaric-SE Alpine lynx population in the long term.