Sunday October 18, 2009, 10:40 am


Here is the translation...


The Lynx return apparently returned to Salzburg. The scientific evidence is still lacking, but the messages in the National Hohentauern piling up.

Anton Kaindl
Fusch (SN). The once-extinct lynx us return to Salzburg. "Over the past weeks, the news frequently, mainly in Fusch," says National Director Wolfgang Urban. "There are good photos of the tracks and bad, in the twilight absorbed by the animals themselves"
The national park has now included wildlife biologists, intended to prove that it is indeed lynx. This is not easy. It could also be house cats. "What makes us skeptical, that there still are no reports of damage wily animals," says Urban.

Even if it is this time still should be held by domestic cats, it's only a matter of time before returning to the lynx in the Salzburg National share. "The habitat is suitable for the animals and in Carinthia, the lynx that keeps coming back." The reports of lynx observations, mostly from hunters. Hikers will be afraid and to meet the nocturnal animals rarely. This is only possible to hunters who sit quietly in the dusk on a high position.

Lynx were like bears, wolves, and bearded vultures in the alpine area home. In Salzburg, we have these animals in the 19 and 20 Century exterminated. The bearded vulture is resettled and the other predators are on the rise.

A bear was sighted in 2003 in Fusch. "But do bear with us just to swipe," says Urban. Bears need large contiguous forest areas, which do not exist in the national park. "No one believes that bears are at home with us. Those who are seen here come from Slovenia. That is no great distance for bears. "

Even the wolf is approaching Austria, the Czech Republic from the north and south of Italy and the Swiss canton of Grisons. "He has not arrived yet, but it looks as if he was approaching," says Urban. "These are not huge pack of 20, 30 animals, but small groups of two or three wolves."

The National Park is preparing for the return of predators, anyway. Urban: "So there is no emotional overreaction, and so we know how to use them, we are taking precautions. We constantly make public events and last year I sent a Ranger into an Italian national park, so he then looks at the wolf management. "

The National Board of Trustees, there is a decision that we bear, lynx and wolf is not actively locates. But will their separate return can not prevent. For the people who are shy animals in no danger. "I know of no incidents," Urban says. Problems were not possible in densely populated areas where bears and wolves quickly become Kulturfolgern and plunder then the garbage cans. "We do not want, but that is unlikely to us. Otherwise we would have the animals may be kept away from the populated areas. "

For broken home and grazing animals, the owners will be compensated. According Hunting Act is available for loss or damage caused by sport-hunted game, a fund. And, bear, wolf and lynx, considered as a sport-hunted game, but they are protected all year round.