20.500.12556/DiRROS-25645 Hunter-engaged monitoring of the Eurasian lynx during the reinforcement process 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. camera trapping citizen science density reinforcement spatial capture recapture foto-pasti občanska znanost gostote doselitve ulov-ponovni ulov true false true Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik Neznano 2026-01-26 13:01:57 2026-01-26 13:01:57 2026-01-27 03:54:00 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2025 0 0 Nasl. z nasl. zaslona; Opis vira z dne 9. 12. 2025; 15 str. issue 6, [article no.] e01399 Vol. 2025 Nov. 2025 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno NiDoloceno 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 599.742.734:[001.891:316] 1903-220X 10.1002/wlb3.01399 233401859 https://nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wlb3.01399 1 d2705621-faae-11f0-a15d-001a4af901a5 https://dirros.openscience.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=38903 Wildlife_Biology_-_2025_-_Flezar_-_Hunter‐engaged_monitoring_of_the_Eurasian_lynx_during_the_reinforcement_process.pdf Wildlife_Biology_-_2025_-_Flezar_-_Hunter‐engaged_monitoring_of_the_Eurasian_lynx_during_the_reinforcement_process.pdf 1 2581310DB5EB94A2569B512915DA45F2 f871bde237243bcaec37e7ab8c3b4e4c898e91f1a268f2b6126be4d952c0cb53 f0e757ac-faae-11f0-a15d-001a4af901a5 https://dirros.openscience.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=38904 Zavod za gozdove Slovenije 0 0 0