In August 2024, colleagues from the Faculty of Environmental Protection, with the exceptional help of local hunters, who once again proved to be very important citizen scientists, deployed camera traps (sensor-triggered cameras) at 18 locations in the Sinji Vrh hunting ground (Kočevsko-Belokranjsko hunting management district; LUO). The cameras were installed within a framework of the international consortium ENETWILD-2, namely European Observatory of Wildlife (EOW) project activities, which main objective is standardised Europe-wide monitoring and estimation of population densities of large mammal species, with a focus on wild boar. Due to this, we installed cameras in an idyllic Slovenia-Croatia border hunting ground above the Kolpa River, which has been classified by the Slovenian National Centre for Disease Control as a high-risk area due to the presence of African swine fever (ASF) in Croatia since summer 2023.
With this deployment of the cameras, we have included the sixth study site (in addition to the hunting grounds Rižana, Vrhe Vrabče, Žabnik Obrov and Strunjan from the Primorsko LUO, and Oljka Šmartno ob Paki from the Savinjsko-Kozjansko LUO) in the Slovenian part of the EOW, which we are implementing together with UP FAMNIT. The monitoring and the findings obtained from the camera traps will also significantly contribute to the realisation of the objectives of three other research projects carried out at the FVO: (i) the targeted research project (CRP) “Wild Boar Rooting: Causes, Consequences, and Options for Reducing Damage and Conflicts” (V4-2223); (ii) the trilateral (Croatia-Slovenia-Switzerland) research project “Wild Boar Response to Hunting Pressure: Impact on Space Use, Stress, and Meat Quality” (N4-0350); (iii) the international project BIG_PICTURE, which started in 2024 as part of the Biodiversa+ European Biodiversity Partnership.
