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Training day. Everybody found their way around the GPS, compass and the snowshoes ready for this morning when we start again with data collection. Yesterday afternoon the whole team also went on a short survey in the national park to find its feet and check a camera trap. Later in the day we swung by a local village famous for its traditional Slovak rural buildings. Minus three was the maximum temperature yesterday and it is set to get colder. This is fine with us, considering our research efforts were hampered by rain last week.
After training our team up on the research gear and methodology on Sunday and Monday, we split into three snowshoe teams on Tuesday. Like last year Milos took a team high up to a ridge finding two carcasses and a possible lynx track. Tomas’Â team was fooled by tracks of possibly wolves or dogs – no one can tell! Tracking is really hard at the moment, though, as there is lots of fresh snow, which melts quickly as we have temperatures around zero. A little colder if it snows, a little warmer if it doesn’t.
In the evening our host Frantisek served us another delicious meal and we were then treated to his international potpourri of songs on the guitar.
On Wednesday we spilt up into four teams, again under difficult conditions as it startet snowing just as we left base. It’s hard to find tracks, but great to be out in this white wilderness.
Watch your hosts as safe drivers, wind-challenged weather forecasters, shameless base camp promoters (with excessive use of the word “lovely” 😉 and efficient field biologists.
We have arrived at base and are now setting everything up. The equipment is all sorted and we’ll go to set up some camera traps in a second.
Peter being all efficient with the equipment
Our host Frantisek made us feel very welcome and has not batted an eyelid at our many strange requests, such as another big table for all the equipment. It’ll be a squeeze into the house, but we’ll manage. Be prepared for cosy room-sharing just like during those good old youth hostel times!
Man about the house, Frantisek
There was plenty of snow when we arrived, but since then a lot of heavy rain. Freezing temperatures are forecast from Saturday onwards again, though.
We’ve also had a meeting with Ivan (the head of the Forestry Departement) to get our permits and support if needed.
Adam will be waiting for you on Sunday morning at 09:15 at Bratislava train station. Our phones work and are as previously advertised.
Just in time for Burns Night, we’re all ready and packed here in England and Germany. A video of Adam, who will be meeting trailblazing group 1 at Bratislava station, is below
There’s snow all across Europe (and for us that includes kicking and screaming bad body England), including Slovakia. Our next diary entry and tracking weather update will be from there. Safe travels to us on the long drive and to you for your trips to Bratislava.
Hello everyone and welcome to the first entry of the 2013 Slovakia diary. We’re Peter Schuette, your expedition leader, and Adam Stickler, Peter’s sidekick for our forthcoming Slovakia adventure.
We’re putting the finishing touches to the paperwork, the equipment has been packed, the cars are serviced and ready to roll, the snow has been falling to give us good tracking conditions and we’re looking forward to our time in Slovakia with our scientist Tomas.
We’ll meet in Germany in 9 days, pack up all the gear (see picture below) and then drive south and east to base five days ahead of you to set up. In case you are wondering what’s in all the boxes, it’s paperwork, scat collection kits, books, batteries, GPSs, etc. You can also see the walking poles, radios, a map, first aid pack (which we’ll hopefully never use) and lots of top-notch Swarovski Optik gear (which we’ll hopefully use lots) on there.
Kit
That’s it for now. We’ll be in touch again from Slovakia with more updates. See you there in due course.
As forecast we’ve had more snow. On Wednesday we had 60 centimetres and heavy snowfall all day, making tracking and surveying impossible. So we collected camera trap memory cards with some great results (bear, otter, deer). But sadly the crafty lynxes keep eluding us.
Today we went out again as usual, hoping for the fresh snow to show recent movements. But no luck as the wildlife is just too smart to move in these conditions. So we spread out to retrieve more camera trap memory cards – well done team for finding the cameras, sometimes hidden under masses of snow. After this hard day, often sinking waist deep into the snow even with snow shoes on, Tomas rewarded us with one of his great movies about the High Tatras.
18 February
Our last day of surveying brought us even more of “deep and steep” as it kept snowing. Dan, Erica, Anne and Matt did really well collecting cards from the lynx place high up. No luck though with the cats – no pics. So we have to hope for the future as the cameras will stay there. Christine, Juliane, Tom and myself gave up after few kilometres as we kept getting stuck up to the hips, so we decided to check the main road, but only foxes and an otter have been busy. Tomas and Milos also went out with their teams to check finally the area around the live traps and deer feeding stations.
Summarising the last three weeks, we have great results, i.e. more than 330 kilometres surveyed, as well as samples of lynx, wolf and bear. So we gained a good first impression of the habitat in the Velka Fatra National Park as Tomas explained to us at the end. But the monitoring has to continue next year to verify these data.
Thank you to everyone who has helped to make this expedition a success. We had a great time, and we hope you had too.
Best wishes to you all and thank you again for all your hard work and enthusiasm
After the training days and a first survey with group 3 to exercise the newly acquired skills, today we split into four groups. Led by Daniel, Tom and Anne followed one lynx track spotted yesterday during the training session. They went up and down the hills and found the remains of a carcass. Group 2 with Juliane and birthday girl Christine detected two fresh tracks on the transect in the western part of the valley close to the location where were also lucky last week. We also collected a urine sample for DNA analysis. Tomas went out with Mat and Erica tracking another lynx spotted yesterday. They discovered an incredible four (!) different footprints and climbed up to the camera traps to exchange the SD cards. No luck so far, at least with lynx, but with wild boar (see below).
Unfortunately they weren’t able to following the tracks, too steep and faint and “roaming around as if stung by an adder”, as Tomas says. Crazy cats! Joanne (yesterday’s birthday girl) and Peter did well climbing with Milos to the western ridge to collect two SD cards and checking out the area, as we haven’t been there for two weeks now. They’ve spotted four wild boars, as well as lots of roe and red deer.
So for the last remaining few days there will be many climbs and downhill experiences in the deep snow as the forecast says there will be new snowfall between 30 and 50 centimetres. But it’s warmer now, only minus 10! But we’ve had enough birthday cakes now to burn the calories again 😉
This week passed by so fast and just now we dropped team 2 at Kralovany train station. We covered more than 120 kilometres surveying forestry roads and ridges. The most exciting find was a lynx resting place under rocks, which Tomas, Martin und Astrid discovered high up on a ridge. Following the tracks, they identified two animals – a mother and a subadult – roaming around together as well as one single animal, probably a male. We’ve set up two camera traps there; the waiting game begins…
Milos found tracks of a wolf pack, four or five animals, in the same area, so we’ll focus further surveys there.
Following the tracks of last week’s group we saw tracks of many animals using those tracks, saving energy by not walking through deep snow. Fox is everywhere as well as pine marten and, of course, red deer, roe deer and wild boar.
After some snowfall on Monday we were hoping to finding fresh tracks and indeed found three of lynx on different spots on one route. Unfortunately there was more snow during the following night covering the footprints, so we couln’t investigate furrther.
In summary, group 2 found seven tracks of lynx, five of wolf, three of bear, two new carcasses and changed the location of four camera traps. We’ve had tough ascents to the ridges, funny descents in deep snow and stunning views to the mountains around us covered with snow.
Now we’re waiting for slot 3 arriving tomorrow to find us some lynx to collar or at a picture of. Elusive buggers 😉 While we wait, I’ve uploaded the “expedition life” video below.
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