Lynx in the Austrian Alps 2000 to 2004

Abstract

Based on reports submitted mostly by hunters and from monitoring activities in the national park Kalkalpen we tried to evaluate the status and the distribution of the lynx in the Austrian Alps for the period 2000 to 2004. Reports on lynx presence have been collected by the hunters associations of Styria, Carinthia, Upper Austria and Vorarlberg, by the national park Kalkalpen and by the department of wildlife biology and game management at the University of natural resources and applied life sciences. For the period 2000 to 2004 225 reports on lynx have been documented for the Austrian Alps. 116 of these were classified as category 3 data, 103 reports on prey remains and tracks have been confirmed by trained people and classified as category 2 data and six reports concerned hard facts (C1). All hard facts and all verifiedrecords originate from two distinct areas – national park Kalkalpen and the Niedere Tauern mountain range. Other areas with lynx reports are the Northeastern Limestone Alps, northwesterm Carinthia and Vorarlberg. Based on the available data we can not determine the actual distribution of the lynx in Austrian Alps or the status of the species in the region. Monitoring efforts by hunters and foresters in the NiedereTauern mountain range has yielded good data on the local situation of lynx. This has to serve as a model for the future development of the monitoring system in Austria.