First photo of Balkan Lynx in Kosovo!

A joyful moment for EuroNatur partner ERA (Environmentally Responsible Action group): A few days ago, a camera trap set by the lynx specialist team of the Kosovar nature conservation NGO for the first time documented a Balkan Lynx in Bjeshket e Nemuna National Park bordering Montenegro.

Until then, only eyewitness reports indicated that there still were Balkan Lynxes roaming the Kosovo forests. The camera trap now provided the desired confirmation. Less than 50 individuals of this subspecies of the Eurasian Lynx are left in the Balkans, with the Mavrovo National Park in Macedonia being the most important stronghold. ERA lynx experts are now intensely working to find out where the photographed lynx came from. “We hope that there’s still a discrete Balkan Lynx population in the Bjeshket e Nemuna Mountains. But it’s also possible that this is a migrant animal from Mavrovo National Park”, says EuroNatur project leader Thies Geertz.

ERA’s Parësim Sanaja and Bardh Sanaja form one of the three new lynx conservationist teams that work for the Balkan Lynx Recovery Programme (BLPR) in Montenegro and Kosovo. Following several workshops to learn field work skills, the conservationists were ready to start in mid-2014 and set camera traps at suitable locations within the Bjeshket e Nemuna National Park. “It’s a great success that the ERA lynx team managed to document a lynx within a short period of time”, says Thies Geertz.

Read more about EuroNatur projects to protect the Balkan Lynx.

Balkan Lynx Recovery Programme (BLRP)

In cooperation with its partner organisations KORA (Coordinated research projects for the conservation and management of carnivores in Switzerland), MES (Macedonian Ecological Society) and PPNEA (Preservation and Protection of Natural Environment in Albania) EuroNatur started the „Balkan Lynx Recovery Programme“ (BLPR), a Balkan lynx conservation project, in 2006. The organisations jointly developed an elaborate conservation programme aiming at sustainably securing Balkan Lynx survival and habitat conservation, while at the same time creating positive prospects for the people in this region.