Prachatice, South Bohemia, Aug 27 (CTK) – Ludek, a male lynx that was spotted in south Bohemia in spring, has appeared in Upper Austria 70 km away now, after evidently overcoming not only the local bustling roads but also the Danube, activists from the Alka Wildlife and Friends of the Earth groups told CTK Thursday.
The environmentalists monitored the lynx’s route in cooperation with their Austrian counterparts from the Luchsprojekt Oesterreich Nordwest.
Ludek was photographed by a photo trap this April for the first time, and then repeatedly monitored in the Sumava mountain range in south Bohemia.
These days, the environmentalists have registered him dozens of kilometres to the south, in a forest near Kuernbergerwald, not far from the Upper Austrian capital of Linz.
It is not clear how he managed to cross the Danube.
“Either the young male is a very good swimmer or he used the bridge at the Ottensheim waterworks to cross the wide river. Both posed a risk to him,” the environmentalists said.
“Collision with cars, along with poaching, are the two biggest risks the Czech-Bavarian-Austrian lynx population is faced with,” they said.
They said the monitoring of Ludek has confirmed the considerable mobility of lynxes, whose population along the Czech-Bavarian-Austrian border is 60 to 80. Some of them cross the border regularly, mainly young males who seek new area to inhabit.
The lynx migration proves that it is necessary to preserve the landscape passable for lynxes and to protect the lynx corridors internationally, the activists said.
It is mainly important to preserve the links between the lynx population in Sumava, and the neighbouring population in the Carpathians and the Alps, which rank among the largest in Europe.
