Title: Foto-traps for the protection of the forest beauty

Published in: “National Geographic Junior” – magazine in Montenegro

Text written by: Darko Saveljic

Photographs: Ljubomir Stefanov; MES-BLRP

Summary: The biggest step towards the protection of the Balkan lynx in this region was taken by the Macedonian Ecological Society in cooperation with PPNEA with support by KORA, EuroNatur and NINA. In the Mavrovo National Park 66 cameras with a motion sensor were set. They succeeded to photograph not only around 10 different lynx specimens, but also hares, brown bear, roe deer, badger, wolf, chamois, wild cat etc. The lynx is the largest European cat. It lives in the forests where it is feeding on roe deer, chamois, wild piglets, hares and birds. Dime Melovski is interviewed and he is talking about the baseline survey and the first attempts of the camera-trapping method.

The Mavrovo NP is part of the European Green Belt Initiative in the border zone with Albania. During the Cold War the border areas between the “east” and “west” were heavily guarded and thus the nature in those regions is considered to be well protected.