1. Hunter-engaged monitoring of the Eurasian lynx during the reinforcement processUrša Fležar, Miha Krofel, Matej Bartol, Rok Černe, Lan Hočevar, Aleksander Trajbarič, Tilen Hvala, Maruša Prostor, Matija Stergar, Malin Aronsson, 2025, izvirni znanstveni članek Povzetek: 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.
Ključne besede: camera trapping, citizen science, density, reinforcement, spatial capture recapture
Objavljeno v DiRROS: 26.01.2026; Ogledov: 497; Prenosov: 364
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2. Survival of Eurasian lynx in the human-dominated landscape of EuropeJoseph Premier, M. L. Bastianelli, Julian Oeser, Ole Anders, Henrik Andrén, Malin Aronsson, Guna Bagrade, Elisa Belotti, Christine Breitenmoser-Würsten, Luděk Bufka, Rok Černe, Lan Hočevar, Miha Krofel, Nives Pagon, 2025, izvirni znanstveni članek Povzetek: Survival and cause-specific mortality rates are vital for evidence-based population forecasting and conservation, particularly for large carnivores, whose populations are often vulnerable to human-caused mortalities. It is therefore important to know the relationship between anthropogenic and natural mortality causes to evaluate whether they are additive or compensatory. Further, the relation between survival and environmental covariates could reveal whether specific landscape characteristics influence demographic performance. We used telemetry data on 681 Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), a model apex predator with large spatial requirements, that were tracked across their European distribution. Through time-to-event analyses, we sought to determine the variables associated with differences in their survival. Illegal killing was the main cause of mortality (33.8%), and mortality rates were similar in protected and hunted populations (8.6% and 7.0% per year, respectively). Survival varied greatly across populations (70–95% per year). Across all study sites, higher hunting and anthropogenic mortality rates were partially compensated by lower rates of other mortality causes but not by natural mortality alone. Variation in survival depended on sex (female survival was 1.5 times greater than male survival) and seasonality (highest risk during hunting season and winter), and lower survival rates were correlated with higher human modification of landscapes at both coarse (home range composition) and fine (habitat use within home range) scales. Some variation in survival was driven by unobserved factors, which, given the high rates of human-caused mortalities, including illegal killing, are of foremost concern. Due to the low natural mortality rates in protected and hunted populations, we conclude that anthropogenic causes of mortality are likely close to additive, such that maintaining or increasing refuge habitat with little human disturbance is critical to lynx conservation.
Ključne besede: cause-specific mortality, compensatory mortality, Eurasian lynx, large carnivore, Lynx lynx, survival
Objavljeno v DiRROS: 23.04.2025; Ogledov: 1963; Prenosov: 696
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