The monitoring of the lynx population with camera traps in Croatia and Slovenia is carried out within the A.3 action “Pre-reinforcement Survey of the Potential Release Sites and the Genetic and Demographic Status of Residual Lynx”. The Croatian project team from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Zagreb, Karlovac University of Applied Sciences and the Association BIOM, set a large network of camera traps in the lynx distribution area thanks to the generous cooperation with numerous hunters, foresters and rangers from nature and national parks. Now there are 99 camera traps at different locations, with the opportunity to place more in the field.
The monitoring started in March and will be continued till further notice. In the current six-month period we collected valuable information on the presence of different animal species in the research area, including lynxes on 18 different locations in 40 separate events. The collected data was gathered and analyzed in the programme Camelot. Based on the collected data, we are still unable to give results on the exact population size in Croatia, but we expect to have enough data for a detailed map of distribution and estimation of the minimum number of individuals present in Croatia after the next 6-month period.
A detailed report on the methodology and species recorded on camera traps is available at the following link:
REPORT ON MONITORING LYNX POPULATION IN CROATIA USING CAMERA TRAPS IN THE PERIOD 15.3. – 15.9.2018 (CRO, pdf)
Lynx caught on camera traps in Croatia