Hunter-engaged monitoring of the Eurasian lynx during the reinforcement process

Fležar, Urša (author), Krofel, Miha (author), Bartol, Matej (author), Černe, Rok (author), Hočevar, Lan (author), Trajbarič, Aleksander (author), Hvala, Tilen (author), Prostor, Maruša (author), Stergar, Matija (author), Aronsson, Malin (author)

Collaborative wildlife monitoring programs involving citizen scientists are an efficient approach for surveying large areas. In Europe, hunters play an important role in wildlife monitoring and act as crucial stakeholders in large carnivore conservation. The Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx, an elusive felid, is a species of conservation concern in Europe. In Slovenia, lynx was exterminated and later reintroduced in 1973, but the population has declined during the past decades. A reinforcement program was initiated in 2017, translocating lynx from the Carpathian population to improve the status of the critically endangered Dinaric population. The reinforcement was coupled with an intensive monitoring program, involving local hunters as key participants. In this study, we show how the collaboration between wildlife managers, researchers and hunters resulted in a robust assessment of the lynx population at a national level for a period of five years. Questionnaires distributed to hunting clubs and chance observations were used to define the expected lynx distribution, and guide the extent of systematic camera trapping surveys, involving between 63 and 101 hunters each year. In southern Slovenia, the core of the lynx population, lynx density doubled during the reinforcement period (from 0.66 to 1.30 lynx/100 km2). In north-western Slovenia where a stepping-stone population in the Alps was established in 2021, the number of lynx increased to seven. Furthermore, all three translocated females reproduced, which represents the first confirmed lynx reproduction in the Slovenian Alps in over 150 years. We discuss the motivation behind the hunters' contribution to the data collection process and the implications of this collaboration. We highlight the importance of maintaining the collaboration and their support for lynx conservation. This study serves as an example for large-scale collaborative monitoring of a recovering population undergoing intensive conservation measures with promising results, involving crucial stakeholders as citizen scientists.

• Language: English
• Keywords: camera trapping, citizen science, density, reinforcement, spatial capture recapture
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: BF - Biotechnical Faculty
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: 15 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 2025, issue 6, art. e01399
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-176700
• UDC: 599.742.734:[001.891:316]
• ISSN on article: 1903-220X
• DOI: 10.1002/wlb3.01399
• COBISS.SI-ID: 233401859
• Publication date in RUL: 09.12.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Wildlife biology
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Nordic Society Oikos
• ISSN: 1903-220X
• COBISS.SI-ID: 525245977

Licences

• License: CC BY 3.0, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
• Link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
• Description: You are free to reproduce and redistribute the material in any medium or format. You are free to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: foto-pasti, občanska znanost, gostote, doselitve, ulov-ponovni ulov