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

Everyone arrived safely on Sunday.

This week we are a team of ten team members form the UK, USA, Germany, Israel and of course Slovakia.

After a journey of about four hours from Bratislava station to Švošov we had lunch and then went straight into briefings and training sessions. In the evening Thomas’s film about the two lynx Lisa and Muro that were born in a zoo, then raised by hand for two years and finally been released into the wild in Lubochnya valley, our study site, rounded up the day.

There was more training on Monday morning, including navigating with maps, compasses and GPSs as well as first experiences with walking with snow shoes. Taking with us all our lunch boxes and the equipment, we left base at 11:30 for a training walk in our study site.

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We found the first fresh wolf tracks only a few dozen metres away from where we had parked the cars. Not only one, but lots of them. So we spent quite some time in this spot until all data were recorded. We proceeded to beautiful lake Blatna and had lunch there. The lake was still covered in layers of snow, despite the thaw of the last four days.

Today will be our fist ‘real’ full survey day out. While I write this, everyone else is having breakfast and preparing for the day.

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