DOI: 10.5061/dryad.cnp5hqcgm
title: Data from: Hunter-engaged monitoring of the Eurasian lynx during the reinforcement process

description: Collaborative wildlife monitoring programs involving citizen scientists
 are an efficient approach for surveying large areas. In Europe, hunters
 play an important role in wildlife monitoring and act as crucial
 stakeholders in large carnivore conservation. The Eurasian lynx (Lynx
 lynx), an elusive felid, is a species of conservation concern in Europe.
 In Slovenia, the lynx was exterminated and later reintroduced in 1973, but
 the population has declined over the past decades. A reinforcement program
 was initiated in 2017, translocating lynx from the Carpathian population
 to improve the critically endangered status of the Dinaric population. The
 reinforcement was coupled with an intensive monitoring programme,
 involving local hunters as key participants. In this study, we show how
 the collaboration between wildlife managers, researchers, and hunters
 resulted in a robust assessment of the lynx population at a national level
 over five years. Questionnaires distributed to hunting clubs and chance
 observations were used to define the expected lynx distribution and guide
 the extent of systematic camera trapping surveys, involving between 63 and
 101 hunters each year. In southern Slovenia, the core of the lynx
 population, lynx density doubled during the reinforcement period (from
 0.66 to 1.30 lynx/100 km²). In north-western Slovenia, where a
 stepping-stone population in the Alps was established in 2021, the number
 of lynx increased to 7. Furthermore, all three translocated females
 reproduced, which represents the first confirmed lynx reproduction in the
 Slovenian Alps in over 150 years. We discuss the motivation behind the
 hunters’ contribution to the data collection process and the implications
 of this collaboration. We highlight the importance of maintaining the
 collaboration and their support for lynx conservation. This study serves
 as an example for large-scale collaborative monitoring of a recovering
 population undergoing intensive conservation measures with promising
 results, involving crucial stakeholders as citizen scientists.
description: # Data from: Hunter-engaged monitoring of the Eurasian lynx during the
 reinforcement process This README file describes the provided dataset for
 the multi-session spatial capture-recapture (SCR) analyses for density and
 abundance estimation of the Dinaric Eurasian lynx population in Slovenia.
 **Description of the data and file structure** **File name: tdf_1823.csv**
 * This dataset contains the information required to run the SCR models,
 accordingly to our paper. It includes the trap deployment data for survey
 seasons 2018-2019 to 2022-2023. * Format(s): .csv * Size(s): 265 KB *
 Dimensions: 192 columns and 652 rows * Variables: trap_ID - a unique
 identifier for a camera trap station within a given survey year * X -
 Longitude of the camera trap station in crs=3794, divided by 1000 and
 rounded to 1 decimal place due to sensitive biological information * Y -
 Latitude of the camera trap station in crs=3794, divided by 1000 and
 rounded to 1 decimal place due to sensitive biological information * 1 -
 185 Camera trap station operability (0 - not operative, 1 - operative) for
 occassion (camera trapping day) 1 to 185 * sep - separator column as
 required by oSCR package (Sutherland et al. 2019) * location_type - type
 of camera trap station; lynx scent marking site (1), road (2) or other
 type (3) * n_cameras - number of camera traps at a camera trap station *
 session - survey season; 2018-2019 (1), 2019-2020 (2), 2020-2021 (3),
 2021-2022 (4), 2022-2023 (5) * Missing values - there are no missing
 values in this dataset * This file needs to be transformed to list of 5
 elements by session according to the requirements of the oSCR package
 (Sutherland et al. 2019) to run SCR models using the package. Methods of
 data collection/generation: see publication for details. **File
 name: edf_1823.csv** * This dataset contains the information required to
 run the SCR models, accordingly to our paper. It includes individual
 encounter histories per survey season (2018-2019 to 2022-2023), camera
 trap station and occasion. Information about lynx sex is included. *
 Format(s): .csv * Size(s): 9 KB * Dimensions: 615 rows x 5 columns *
 Variables: * trap_ID - a unique identifier for a camera trap station
 within a given survey year, corresponding to "trap_ID" column in
 Trap deployment file, per survey season * occasion_ID - an occasion
 (camera trapping day), corresponding to columns "1" to
 "185" in Trap deployment file, per survey season * sex_ID - lynx
 sex; female (F), male (M), unknown (U) * individual_ID - a unique
 identifier of an independent individual lynx * session_ID - survey season;
 2018-2019 (1), 2019-2020 (2), 2020-2021 (3), 2021-2022 (4), 2022-2023 (5)
 * Missing values - there are no missing values in this dataset * This file
 is the direct input to run SCR models using the oSCR package (Sutherland
 et al. 2019). Methods of data collection/generation: see publication for
 details. **File name: ss_1823.csv** * This dataset contains the
 information required to run the SCR models, accordingly to our paper. It
 includes the spatial definition of the state space for survey seasons
 2018-2019 to 2022-2023. * Format(s): .csv * Size(s): 103 KB * Dimensions:
 3548 rows x 3 columns * Variables: * X - Longitude of the state space
 pixel centroid in crs=3794, divided by 1000 * Y - Latitude of the state
 space pixel centroid in crs=3794, divided by 1000 * session - survey
 season; 2018-2019 (1), 2019-2020 (2), 2020-2021 (3), 2021-2022 (4),
 2022-2023 (5) * Missing values - there are no missing values in this
 dataset * This file needs to be transformed to list of 5 elements by
 session according to the requirements of the oSCR package (Sutherland et
 al. 2019) to run SCR models using the package. Methods of data
 collection/generation: see publication for details. **Contact
 Information** * Name: Urša Fležar * Affiliations: Biotechnical Faculty,
 University of Ljubljana, Slovenia * ORCID ID:
 [https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5865-948X](https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5865-948X) * Email: [ursaflezar@gmail.com](mailto:ursaflezar@gmail.com), [ursa.flezar@bf.uni-lj.si](mailto:ursa.flezar@bf.uni-lj.si) **Acknowledgements** * We obtained these data through LIFE program (project LIFE Lynx LIFE16 NAT/SI/000634), the Slovenian Ministry of Natural Resources and Spatial Planning and the Interreg Central Europe program (3Lynx project). We are grateful to all the local hunters, professional hunting wardens, protected-area rangers and other volunteers from Slovenia whose voluntary fieldwork generated the camera-trapping data used for this study. **Dates and Locations** * Dates of data collection: Data was collected with systematic camera trapping within 5 survey seasons between 2018 and 2023 (each season lasted from August one year to February the next year). * Geographic locations of data collection: Slovenia, Europe (see publication and Figure 1 for more details).