Successful roe deer captures in Slovenia this season

After setting-up box traps for capturing roe deer in six hunting clubs in the Jelovica area in autumn 2021, we have now managed to capture 10 roe deer during these winter months.

With strong cooperation, the project team from Slovenia Forest Service and members of the hunting clubs Železniki, Selca, Jošt – Kranj, Bohinjska Bistrica, Sorica and Jelovica – Ribno captured 6 bucks and 4 does for the purpose of telemetric monitoring of their movements, activity and space use. We are pleased that all the captures went smoothly and successfully.

How do we capture roe deer?

Firstly, we activated box traps and installed an alarm system, which then sent us a notification in case the trap was closed.

The captured animal is then physically immobilised (no tranquillisers or sedatives are used) and its eyes are immediately covered with a black facemask. It is ear-tagged, measured and fitted with a telemetry collar. We use two types of collars, a satellite collar and a GSM collar. Both types locate the animal via GPS satellite system, but they use either satellite communication with the base stations or the GSM telephone network to transmit the data from the collar.

After fitting the collar, the animal is released immediately.

Captured roe deer bucks return to the box trap

This season we also recaptured Andraž, the buck from the hunting ground Selca, which was fitted with a collar for the first time last winter. Our automatic camera caught it later, when it walked to the box trap again.

Two bucks, Matic and Matjaž, were also filmed by our automatic cameras, when they returned to the box traps several times after being marked in the hunting grounds Bohinjska Bistrica and Železniki.