On a Christmas day, we got a message that a trap was triggered and a photo of a young lynx standing in front of the box-trap in Pokljuka. The joy was indescribable, when it was confirmed that we manage to capture the first lynx offspring from Gorenjska region in the Slovenian Alps. The lynx was sedated, measured, and fitted with a telemetry collar. A veterinary examined the lynx and confirmed that it was a male, weighing 12 kg, and...
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In the last days of November, the Slovenian LIFE Lynx team successfully captured lynx Aida and replaced her telemetry collar. The lynx was caught in a box trap set on a forest road where she was regularly recorded during the last camera trapping season. Aida was translocated from Romania and together with male Zois released into the forests of Jelovica plateau in 2021. They established their territories there and already got two...
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We are using telemetry collars to monitor movement and activity of all translocated lynxes. We are especially interested in their exploratory movements after the release and until they establish their territory. To fully understand this process, we also capture and collar resident animals. At the moment we are monitoring five neighboring lynxes on Velebit Mountains in Croatia, three of them were translocated from the Carpathians and...
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In July, we started with camera trapping in Gorenjska to find out what is the status of lynx Tris, Lenka and Zois, whose telemetry collars stopped working this year. Photographs confirmed that Tris and Lenka are still present in Triglav National Park, so we chose the best locations for their recapture. In cooperation with Bled Hunting Club, LIFE Lynx team set up the first box-trap on the top of an isolated ridge while the second...
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For the fifth season in a row, lynx monitoring with camera traps is being carried out in Slovenia in close cooperation with hunters from hunting clubs and state managed hunting grounds (LPNs). Each year more and more hunting clubs join this activity; this year we joined forces with 58 hunting clubs and six state managed hunting grounds from the Kočevska, Notranjska, Northern Primorska and Gorenjska regions. In each participating...
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On August 18, the LIFE Lynx project team had successfully recaptured and replaced a telemetry collar on remnant male lynx Klif on the cliffs above Kolpa River. Capture and sedation was led by the project team from Department of Forestry from Biotechnical faculty and ZOO Ljubljana. Klif was in very good health condition and looked physically fit. He gained 1.5 kg since the previous capture and now weighs 24.5 kg. He shares a territory...
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The camera trapping survey in Slovenia between 2021 and 2022 was a record year in terms of the area covered and the amount of data collected. The survey extended from Dinarics to the Alpine area, involving 57 hunting grounds in camera trapping. 318 lynx events were detected at 71 out of 173 locations in total, which is 100 more detections than one season earlier. A minimum of 30 adult animals were identified from the photos. This...
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A translocated lynx Goru and a resident lynx Teja have had several litters so far. Their first offspring is lynx Mala, from the next litter we have telemetry-collared lynx Niko, and from the third litter we have telemetry-collared lynxes Valentina and Neža. Here is an update what is happening with them. After the photos from camera traps and the genetic analyses confirming the paternity of Goru, the female lynx Mala was good news for...
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With an aim to confirm the presence of lynx with malfunctioning telemetry collars; Tris, Lenka and Zois, camera trapping in Gorenjska started already in July. Besides, August is the month when females with kittens increase their movement rates and replace breastfeeding with feeding with natural prey. That makes them possible to record on camera traps. After a month of camera trapping, we were more than successful; we managed to record...
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In the middle of May, we received a mortality signal from the GPS collar of lynx Neža, the offspring of the translocated lynx Goru and the resident lynx Teja. The project partners from the Biotechnical Faculty immediately went to the last location they received, from the collar. In the area of the Struge na Dolenjskem Hunting Club, near a high-stand, they found a GPS-collar that had been visibly torn off by force. The incident was...
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Blisk, a translocated lynx from Romania, was released into the forests of Snežnik, Slovenia on the May 17 this year. Since his release, he explored the area around the release site first going South. However, he turned back to the area of the release site and moved North to Javorniki forests where he has stayed since then. During the past camera trapping season (2021-2022), a female lynx was recorded in that area, which could indicate...
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