From our conservation holiday volunteering with lynx, wolves, bears and wildcats in the Carpathian mountains of Slovakia (http://www.biosphere-expeditions.org/slovakia)

Hello everyone and welcome to the Slovakia 2017 expedition diary.

My name is Malika and I will be your expedition leader. It’s been seven years since I led this project and I am really looking forward to returning to Slovakia.

In a few minutes I will be leaving from Höchberg in Bavaria, Germany. I have packed items such as GPSs, binoculars, paperwork etc. from the stores into three boxes; the rest is already in storage in Slovakia.

Today I’ll drive for seven hours or so to Vienna, and tomorrow another four to our expedition base in Švošov, where I should arrive around noon on Thursday to set up. Tomas, the expedition scientist and his assistant Noro will join me on Saturday morning.

From what we’ve heard from our partners on the ground, the study site is covered in snow – good conditions for our surveys. Keep your fingers crossed that the temperatures will stay low enough to get more snow instead of rain.

I hope your preparations are going well. I will be in touch again once I have arrived at base with updates from the site.

That’s it for now – I’ll keep you updated.

Regards

Malika

From our conservation holiday volunteering with lynx, wolves, bears and wildcats in the Carpathian mountains of Slovakia (http://www.biosphere-expeditions.org/slovakia).