The project area covers the entire area of Slovenia with regular wolf presence and through the project we aim to target the entire population of wolves in Slovenia. The area consists of two main parts; the Dinaric and the Alpine part.
The Dinaric area is particularly important because it represents the source population and is providing dispersal animals towards the Eastern Alps of Slovenia, Italy and Austria. Wolves from this project area are naturally recolonizing the Eastern Alps and are reconnecting with the Italian wolf population in the Central-Eastern part of the Alps. This is also one of the most well-preserved forest areas in the country and in Europe. The Dinaric range in Slovenia is one of the European biodiversity hot-spots. Together with neighbouring Gorski Kotar in Croatia it is a part of the largest unfragmented forest complex in Central Europe. It also includes most Brown bears (Ursus arctos) and Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) in Slovenia. This area is one of the few regions in Europe where three species of large carnivores still coexist in a well preserved environment, resulting in complex interspecific interactions. A large number of species living in this area is also listed on IUCN Red List and on Bern Convention Appendices.
The Alpine area is important as a migration corridor from the Dinaric Mountains to the Alps. This corridor has been used previously by red deer, brown bear and lynx. Wolf has only recently recolonized this area. In the core area – there have been solitaire wolves detected since mid 1990`s, however in the south-eastern part of the area, Nanos and Trnovski gozd one to two wolf packs have been present since 2009. In 2011 and 2012 litters have been detected with howling tests in the area. These packs represent direct connection to wolf packs in Dinaric Mountains and are a very important nucleus for further colonization of the Eastern Alps as well as dispersion route toward central western Alps. In the southern part of the area wolves co-occur with brown bears and lynx. This is so far the only area where all three species of large carnivores are present in all the Alps.
