May 16, 2021 - Great news for wildlife in Croatia, as the Velebit Nature Park welcomed a new lynx Emil. The wild cat came from Slovakia and thus joins nearly 40 other lynxes that inhabit the park. 

As turistickeprice.hr reports, Velebit Nature Park has become richer for one beautiful cat: Emil! The new lynx arrived from Slovakia and immediately rushed out of the transport box into the Velebit area. It's a lynx, the largest European cat, but the survival of this species in the Dinaric mountains is endangered due to inbreeding. After extinction at the beginning of the 20th century, the Dinaric lynx population was re-established in 1973 by the settlement of six animals from the Slovak Carpathians in Slovenia.

The adult male lynx was caught in the Slovak Carpathians and spent two months in quarantine to make sure he arrived in Croatia healthy and with the necessary antibodies to the rabies virus. It's out of the shipping box released on Apatišan, near Krasno. In accordance with the epidemiological measures, he was accompanied by a small number of spectators, among whom a special place was taken by students from the Elementary School Krasno.

‘‘Emil is the third lynx we are releasing in the Velebit area. Last year, in the Paklenica National Park, we released Alojzije, who established the terrain in the area of ​​the municipality of Sveti Rok, and the lynx Pina, whose fate we, unfortunately, do not know. Based on the data from the photo traps, we estimate that there are about 40 adult lynxes on Velebit, so we hope that Emil will not have any problems finding a partner’’, said the director of Velebit Nature Park, Ana Brkljačić.

All lynxes present today in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina are descendants of these six lynxes. Nearly 50 years of breeding close relatives without contact with lynx from other populations, resulted in genetic disorders and the only solution for survival was the re-import of lynx from the Carpathians. This is exactly what the international team of experts gathered in the LIFE Lynx project, co-financed by the European Commission, is doing. In the last three years, he has been to Slovenia and Croatia, both inhabited by a total of 13 lynxes from Slovakia and Romania, and the first descendants of inhabited males and local females have already been recorded, thus stopping inbreeding.

The new lynx found a new home in the Velebit Nature Park, which is just one of the 12 natural parks in Croatia, and you can learn more about them in Total Croatia's Guide to National and Natural Parks in Croatia, HERE. Now you can find Total Croatia articles in your language!

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As Poslovni Dnevnik/Sergej Novosel Vuckovic/Lucija Spiljak writes on the 9th of October, 2020, the first Croatian road cleaner, Lynx, which is manufactured by Rasco from Kalinovac, has conquered the European market just one year after it was introduced. Rasco's impressive machine maintains public areas across Europe, in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, France, Slovakia and Norway.

One of Rasco's road cleaners was recently bought by the company Tehnix from Donji Kraljevec for the maintenance of 100,000 cubic metres of their factory complex, which replaced three employees who can now devote more time to the maintenance of other parts of the plant.

''It has a strong turbine that can pick up pieces of cutting board and screws that fall off forklifts and containers. Thanks to the great autonomy of this type of work, in a few minutes it cleans the surface that has been cleaned with brooms for hours up until now,'' said the director and owner of Tehnix, Djuro Horvat. Apart from the fact that Rasco plans to increase the number of compact cleaners it produces, the electric version is also in its prototype phase.

Such an electric cleaner has already been produced by the Zagreb-based company Viking, which is entirely a Croatian product and prides itself on being ''anti-covid''.

Part of what was produced, more precisely 30 e-tricycles, was purchased by Cistoca Zagreb, ie Zagreb Holding, and presented very recently on Zagreb's main square in the presence of Mayor Milan Bandic and Viking Director Robert Vlasic. The vehicles have a power of one kW, can withstand six hours of driving after charging, and their payload is up to 500 kilograms. Their speed ​​is 15 km/h. The cargo area is modular, so in addition to transporting waste, it can be adapted to the customer's wishes, eg for use as something novel like an ice cream box.

"We hope that Zagreb Holding will be satisfied and that they will buy more of them. We also sent two down to Dubrovnik so they can see what they're all about, and we hope for more interest. We'll also present this Croatian product at Eurobike in Friedrichshafen, Germany at the end of November. It is the world's largest fair for bicycle equipment,'' announced Vlasic.

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March 9, 2020 - The team behind the LIFE Lynx project, aiming to stabilise the population of lynx in the Alps and the Dinaric Alps, posted a video of a Croatian lynx walking near a road, which is an unusual sight as the wild cats don't really like people and are usually trying to get as far away from them as possible.

The video was taken by Alen Brkić from Gorski Kotar, and it was recorded near Sopač, a small village in Gorski Kotar, near the junction from Lujzijana towards Mrkopalj. The video is of quite high quality and quite long, so it was not difficult for the experts from the LIFE Lynx project to recognise the lynx (and they had the help from the lynx' GPS tracker which he's had on since September 2019).

They've identified the lynx as Rista, which is a punny name in Croatian, as the lynx is called ris, so the lynx in question is actually "ris Rista" in Croatian. It's not really correct to use the term "Croatian lynx", as they're free-moving animals, who don't pay any attention to international borders (and don't even seem to be bothered by the fence between Croatia and Slovenia).

The LIFE Lynx experts explain in their Facebook post that the lynx are usually solitary and territorial, but during the mating season (February - March) they become extremely active, cover large distances and enter other male's territories as they're searching for females. If you run across a lynx these days (which is not a frequent occurrence; most people will never see a live lynx even if they share the habitat) just let him or her walk away peacefully, don't try to engage them in any way, and they will usually just go confidently in the direction of their dreams.

One thing to pay attention to is to recall your dogs, as an average dog might see a lynx as a somewhat bigger cat and try and pick a fight with it, but things will probably not end well for your dog, as lynx are strong animals.

We wish Rista the best of luck in his attempts to find a female and mate, as that will be one small step in the growth of a robust population of lynx in these parts!

Find out more about the international LIFE Lynx project.