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In the past couple of days, the team of 14 have broken into four smaller groups and surveyed side valleys, ridges and summits; In total we have surveyed 114.1 kilometres of the Velka Fatra National Park.
Our findings….
Several separate lynx tracks, bear tracks (the warm weather means bears are not hibernating), wolf tracks, and many golden eagles sightings.
One group have discovered a bear’s den. Tomas (our scat and track pro scientist) was disappointed that rather than venturing in to count how many bears were in the den, take some pictures, collect some scat samples and perhaps stay for a cuddle, the group pushed on, rather quickly…. Probably keen to get to cafe ‘Pod Lipami’ for hot chocolate delights.
The group have made great progress and are in good spirits. The data collected has already been incredibly valuable to the project.
Yesterday everybody arrived safely in Slovakia and we immedialety started the introductory talks and briefings on safety and science;
followed by training on the equipment this morning. We then went out as one team to get used to the terrain and learn about ‘the tracking techniques’.
Without much snow (it’s thawing at the moment) we walked almost 14 kilometres and found lots of stuff: Tracks of three lynxes, tracks of a wolf pack and two single wolves, tracks of two bears, a bear scat, two wolf scats, a bagder track, and a so far unkwown badger den, also, tracks of a haselgrouse, sightings of a herd of red deer and two golden eagles.
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First results of our camera traps include photos of a fox and a pine marten on our deer carcass.
Since we started working in Slovakia, this has been without a doubt the day with most findings 😉
We all went out into the national park today to set up some camera traps. There is a dusting of snow up in the mountains – enough to detect animal tracks. The foresters reported wolf tracks to Tomas only minutes ago by text message. Whilst in the national park, we placed a camera trap next to a fresh carcass of a red deer we found in the middle of a forestry road – killed by a pack of wolves. At the next turn of the road we found a huge track that must have been made by a massive bear.
All very exciting. We look forward to you helping us to find out more.
Hello everyone and welcome to the first entry of the 2014 Slovakia diary. We’re Peter Schuette, your expedition leader, and Astrid Callomon, your assistant expedition leader. At the moment we are busy preparing the paperwork and all the little things that need to be done before we head off to Slovakia in six days. On Sunday we will meet Dr. Matthias Hammer, Biosphere Expeditions’ executive director to pack up all the gear and then drive to Vienna go collect three Land Rovers kindly provided by Land Rover Austria for the expedition. Then we’ll also meet Tomas, our scientist, to drive on to base in the Velka Fatra. Tomas was there for a recce two weeks ago – no snow, but temperatures are dropping, so keep your fingers crossed for some good tracking conditions.
If you want to ‘meet’ Tomas before you actually meet him, have a look at this
Peter is here
Astrid is our new kid on the block, expedition leader in training and assistant leader to Peter, so no videos of her yet (but we will soon fix this). More about her is on www.biosphere-expeditions.org/about > “Staff”.
Peter’s mobile number will be xxxx (to be confirmed once it’s switched on an working by next Tuesday). Astrid’s number should be xxx. Remember that both are for emergency purposes only (such as missing assembly).
We’ll be back with updates as we pack up and leave. We hope your preparations are going well too. Safe travels and see you in Slovakia!
Tomas has sent in some more results of our camera traps.
First from the wolf carcass camera where this year’s expedition found a dead deer (probably killed by a single wolf). Apparently there were a lot of pictures of foxes and pine martens, but in the middle of March a really big bear also started to check the carcass.
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The other pictures are from traps placed on the ridge close to lake Blatne.There is a really nice example of a wolf hunting with first deer and two minutes later a wolf passing the trap. With your help we have found that this location is very good for camera-trapping wolves.
Tomas tells us that the camera trap that we placed on 14 Feb has taken some excellent pictures of lynx between 16 and 17 Feb. Have a look at the brilliant short video
Well, for another year the Slovakia lynx, wolf and wildcat expedition is coming to a close :(. We have had a great time and it was sad to see slot two leave on the train to Bratislava this morning.
We covered a total of 280 km, a massive effort! Slot 1 covered 120 km and 24 cells, slot 2 covered 160 km and 19 cells. Over the two weeks we collected seven samples of wolf urine, one wolf hair sample and four lynx urine samples. We managed to track the movements of both wolf and lynx through two national parks, finding four definite lynx tracks and three wolf tracks. We have put camera traps on six carcasses and in four other locations. It is best not to disturb the camera trap areas for a while now, so Tomas will check them in a few weeks for results. Watch this space for updates from Tomas in due course.
We would like to thank everyone for the effort they have put in. Remember that without you, none of these data would be collected and no reports would get written up. Next to nothing about the wolf and lynx populations in the Veľká and Mala Fatra national parks was known until only a couple of years ago. With your help and through our long-term research, we are changing this slowly over the years with the ultimate aim of reducing human-wildlife conflict and to create a sustainble future for wolves, lynx, humans and other wildlife in this beautiful part of Slovakia.
Thank you also to our local friends and helpers Franitsek and others, as well as Swarovski Optik and Land Rover for their support of the expedition. It is great to have all of us pulling in one direction together.
Swarovski Optik in actionLand Rover in action
Thanks again, have a safe trip back and we hope to see you again sometime!
We are just about to head out on the last day of surveying. We all have tired legs, but we are ready for one last push! Yesterday was the most eventful day yet on the expedition with clear signs of lynx and wolf, as well as carcasses in the valleys. It seems the wolves are hungry after a week of difficult hunting in deep snow. Tomas’s group spent a gruelling day yesterday tracking a wolf pack through thick forest eventually finding a carcass lying beside as stream.
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