What kind of an animal is lynx – the mysterious denizen of our forests?

The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is the largest feral cat living in Europe. The adult animal measures 70–130 cm in length and weighs between 12 to 35 kg. It has a distinctive feline head, which appears bigger due to tufts of longer hair at the sides. There are also distinctive tufts at the end of its triangular ears. The fur is brown with a unique pattern of spots and speckles. Every lynx has a different pattern, just like humans have different fingerprints.

In Europe, the lynx lives in forest habitats. It needs large, dense forest areas to survive and, as an apex predator, plays an important role in the ecosystem. It mostly hunts roe deer, but also feeds on dormice, chamois and red deer calves. As a predator, it maintains healthy populations of wild ungulates, impacting their numbers and behaviour, and thus indirectly protects plant growth.

In Slovenia, the lynx is found mainly in the Dinaric fir-beech forests, which are relatively sparsely populated. The High Dinaric Karst is characterised by karst landforms such as basins, precipices, caves, overhanging rocks and rock formations. The rugged environment suits the lynx very well. Rocks serve as lookout points, and it likes to walk on fallen trunks, along ridge edges, rock-shelters and faults.

It can be found in the areas of Trnovo Forest Plateau, Nanos, Menišija Plateau and Javorník Hills and the forests of Kočevje. Until recently, lynx were extremely rare in the Slovenian Alps.

We have already lost a lynx once

The lynx used to be present throughout Slovenia until it disappeared at the beginning of the 20th century due to overhunting and deforestation. In 1973, hunters and foresters reintroduced the species to the Kočevje area and it has successfully spread over large parts of the Dinarides and the eastern Alps. But by the beginning of the new millennium, its existence was endangered once again due to inbreeding. To prevent extinction, 18 lynx from Slovakia and Romania were translocated to Slovenia and Croatia as part of the LIFE Lynx project. For now, the population is safe, but its survival depends largely on us.

What we know, we tend to value more

Education is a key activity in protecting a particular element of nature, as ignorance is often the cause of its endangerment. Nature needs to be brought closer to people so that we can appreciate and admire it and become sensitive to the loss and endangerment of different species. For this purpose, the Lynx Educational Trail was established in Kočevje. It is located near “Koča pri Jelenovem studencu” mountain hut and offers visitors an insight into the life of lynx, the challenges their population is facing and the important role they play in the ecosystem. Ris je krovna vrsta, z varovanjem risa varujemo tudi njegov življenjski prostor in posledično vse ostale rastlinske in živalske vrste, ki so pomembne za zdrav in delujoč ekosistem, od katerega smo odvisni tudi ljudje.

Lynx has already been lost once – let us hope that this time – with a changed attitude towards nature and an awareness of our interconnectedness – we will be able to preserve it.

Sources: Čadež, D., Jankovič, N., Kavčič, I., & Pšeničnik, A. (2023). Didaktična priporočila za risovo pot (1st Edition, p. 19). Faculty of Biotechnology, University of Ljubljana, Department of Biology.

Read the previous post: Franc Volf, a miner from Kočevje: memories of a miner’s life in Kočevje.

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Krokar (TN: the raven) is one of those areas where man let nature run its own course. Not quite, is how the forester Tomaž Hartman, who in 2014 together with five photographers published a bilingual monograph about the old-growth forest, would correct me. Even protected areas cannot be protected against polluted air, acid rain and similar. Human stupidity knows no bounds! As Mr Hartman likes to point out, the primeval old-growth forest offers us an insight into the distant past. At the beginning of last year, he told me that “our perception of the world isn’t the only one that is correct or true”. And he is right.   

Primeval forests of Kočevska region

There are 6 remnants of primeval forest in Kočevska region, and thus it is something special, particularly for foresters. Krokar, a part of Borovška gora, extends over an area just over 74 hectares and gives shelter to bears, wolves, mountain eagles, peregrine falcons, black woodpeckers, wood grouses, lynxes, etc. And a plethora of small animals that are barely detectable with the naked eye. There an almost inaudible teeming pervades the decaying trunks, only because the reins are in nature’s hands.

What cannot resist the natural calamities, falls down and rots away. Yet those to overcome, thrive and dominate. And this area is predominantly covered with beech wood, which – according to the experts – has survived here during the Ice Age and has throughout the millennia spread across northern Europe. That is why, the Krokar primeval forest has been listed on the UNESCO’s Natural Heritage List since 2017. Bojan Kocjan, MSc, of the Kočevje Regional Unit of the Slovenia Forest Service, points out that “the entry is the result of long-standing 120-year efforts.”  

A thick dossier, covering five years of collecting materials, conducting inspections and checks, is proof of how Krokar attained importance on the global level. “It was only here that the beech tree could survive. Further north, there was only ice. As the ice began to recede, the beech tree spread from here,” is how Mr Kocjan explains the remarkable development of beech tree ecosystems that took place around 12,000 years ago. Along with the beech tree, other plants and animals have spread throughout the Europe as well. The list includes 63 areas of old-growth and primeval beech forests from ten countries. In addition to Krokar, the list also includes the Slovenian Snežnik–Ždrocle area.  

“The primeval forests retained their old-growth primeval character because someone decided to leave them be,” explains Bojan Kocjan, MSc. An important role was played by Leopold Hufnagel, who excluded the initial old-growth forest remnants by creating the first forest management plan. “Those two, that is sections 38 and 39, mentioned in his notes from 1892, are gone. They were cut down after World War II,” adds Mr Kocjan. Notes in literature record that there was a vast primeval forest which had existed on Borovška gora that was cut down after the war. “Krokar is a remnant of a wider area that was left untouched on Borovška gora.”

We do not enter into the primeval forest!

Let us not forget that the entry onto the Unesco’s Natural Heritage List brings with it responsibilities and obligations. That is why you should not walk along a well-beaten footpath that would mislead and lure a care-free hiker and lead him into the primeval forest! Visitors can reach the edge of Krokar from the direction of Cerk. However, entering the primeval forest that is marked in blue, is strictly forbidden. Only foresters are allowed to venture there to measure trees that are more than ten centimetres thick. And, as a forester from Kočevje adds, they enter it after the end of the growing season so that the development of primordial nature would be impaired as little as possible. 

Sources: 
– Tomaž, Hartman. 2014. Pragozd: pranarava Kočevske.
– Kocjan, Bojan, MSc. 2019. Interwiev with Petra Šolar.

Are you planing a visit to Kočevska region? Meet a famous local hero Peter Klepec!

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Life and work

Georg Jurij Jonke was born on 17 April 1777 in Gorenje (Obern) near Stara Cerkev (Mitterdorf). Having finished the studies of philosophy and classical languages in Graz and the study of theology in Ljubljana, the Archbishop of Ljubljana, baron Brigido, in September 1803, ordained him as a priest in Kočevje (Gottschee). For a while he served as chaplain in Stara Loka, and was then promoted to vicar and catechist in Novo mesto. Since 25 July 1808 until his retirement in 1834, he practised the profession of a priest in Črmošnjice (Tschermoschnitz).

Jonke practised beekeeping already in his youth. In his orchard in Črmošnjice (Tschermoschnitz), he set up three apiaries with approximately 150 beehives. In the summer, he had even more beehives, i.e. the number topped three hundred, and he was lending bees to other beekeepers. Jonke, who was an expert on beekeeping at the Kranjska kmetijska družba (Carniolan Agricultural Society), was in his time held in high esteem as an authority on beekeeping in Carniola. He promoted beekeeping and wrote about it in important German and Slovenian newspapers, e.g. in, at that time, central beekeeping magazine Bienen-Zeitung, in Kmetijske in rokodelske novice (Agricultural and Artisan News), etc. 

Particularly important is his guide entitled Anleitung zur praktischen Behandlung der Bienenzucht (Instructions for a Practical Approach to Beekeeping). He wrote it in 1836 and ordered it to be translated as Kranjski čbelarčik (in Bohorič alphabet: Krajnſki Zhbelarzhik). With this, Jonke did not only go down in history as an important Gottscheer and Slovenian beekeeper, but also as an intellectual who understood that if he wanted to spread his words of advice, he should write in a language that people of the then multilingual state would be able to understand. Due to its publication in Slovene and German language and because it was written comprehensibly – the author had an untrained reader in mind – the Kranjski čbelarčik found its way in many farm homes in Carniola and Gottschee.

“Jonke’s beehive”

At the exhibition “Not everyone is cut-out for bee-keeping” that we set up in 2018 at the Putscherle Institute, we also presented to the public the as of yet unknown “Jonke’s beehive”. It is a movable honeycomb beehive that Jonke as the first Carniolan and indeed even as one of the first beekeepers designed according to the model of the master beekeeper Dzierzon from Poland and marks great progress in beekeeping technique. The beehive is in the ownership of the family Kapš from Občice.

Georg Jurij Jonke – benefactor and peacemaker

During the times of the Illyrian provinces, Jonke probably acted as a mayor (mer) and local magistrate. According to the oral tradition, he was bestowed this function because he saved the captured French soldiers whom the Gottscheers intended to secretly kill.  He convinced the infuriated men to spend the night with him in the parish, and he placed the French soldiers in the houses in the surroundings and made sure that they did not lack anything and were not thirsty. The next morning he addressed the Gottscheers with the following words: “Alas, we do not know he is to win, our or the French Emperor, and were it the latter what then? Whoever may emerge victorious, you should not forget that you are Christians and it is forbidden for you to lay hands on captives,” and persuaded them to let the soldiers go. In doing so, he gained the respect of the French who later granted him other wishes. For example, at one time he learnt that the French intend to shoot a few Gottscheers in the city of Kočevje. He wrote a letter and sent a boy to run with it from Črmošnjice to Kočevje and hand it over to the French commander. The boy arrived just in time and the condemned persons were saved.

Jonke even saved the whole town of Kočevje from burning down to the ground when the French wanted to destroy it as a retaliatory action against the uprising that started in the Kočevska and White Carniola regions on the night from 8^thand 9^thOctober 1809. After Jonke’s intervention, they spared the city. However, it was looted during 16^thand 18^thOctober, and the five main rebels from Kočevje were shot.

The fact that Jurij Jonke on several occasions financially helped his fellow kinsmen in dire straits, is evidenced by his name that was found on various lists of donors in the newspapers from that time. He also donated proceeds from the sale of Kranjski čbelarčik (Instructions on Practical Approach to Beekeeping) for charity purposes.

However, Jonke, unfortunately, spent the last years of his life in poverty and misery. He died on 12 May 1864 at the age of 87. He is buried at the cemetery of Novi Tabor (Neutabor) near Črmošnjice, where his tombstone still stands. In addition, the holy-water font bearing his inscription from 1830 and the clock mechanism that he built in the belfry of the church in Črmošnjice in 1823 is what the great beekeeper from Kočevje left behind. In 2014, the regional Beekeeping Association of Peter Pavel Glavar, the Dolenjske Toplice Beekeepers’ Association and the Gottscheer Altsiedlerverein uncovered a memorial plaque honouring Jurij Jonke at the headquarters of the Gottscheer Altsiedlerverein in Občice.

Sources:
– Bukovec, Avguštin, 1944: Čebelarski zbornik. Ljubljana: Slovensko čebelarsko društvo.
– Gerlanc, Bogomil, Mole, Izidor, 1956: Kočevsko: zemljepisni, zgodovinski in umetnostno-kulturni oris kočevskega okraja: vodnik z adresarjem. Kočevje: Turistično olepševalno društvo.
– Erker, Josef. 1914. Georg Jonke als Prister, Bienenzüchter und Patriot. Gottscheer Bote.
– Jonke, Juri, 1836 in 1844: Krajnski Čbelarčik: to je: kratko podučenje čbele rediti, in z’ njimi prav ravnati. Dlib: https://www.dlib.si/stream/URN:NBN:SI:DOC-K56EPUI4/852f399a-afc2-4300-9f7d-4c005199cfb6/PDF
– Porenta, Tita, 2018: Veliki ljudje slovenskega čebelarstva. Brdo pri Lukovici: Čebelarska zveza Slovenije; Radovljica: Muzeji radovljiške občine – Čebelarski muzej.
– Slovenska čebela. Čebelarsko društvo, 1876.
– Šalehar, Andrej idr., 2012: Georg Jurij Jonke – črmošnjiški župnik in kranjski čebelar.Novo mesto: Regijska čebelarska zveza Petra Pavla Glavarja; Brdo pri Lukovici: Čebelarska zveza Slovenije; Občice: Društvo Kočevarjev staroselcev.
– Šalehar, Andrej idr., 2014: Poučevanje čebelarstva na Kranjskem: od Petra Pavla Glavarja (1768) in Antona Janše (1770) do Emila Rothschütza (1874). Novo mesto: Regijska čebelarska zveza Petra Pavla Glavarja.

Do you want to learn more about the wider Kočevska (Gottschee) area? See our previous post: World War I memorials in the Kočevska (Gottschee) region.

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With most of the others, the weather does not play an important role. The temperature inside them is always between 8 and 10 degrees Celsius and since the ceiling is water-proof, it doesn’t matter when you decide to explore them. These small hidden gems that are strewn across the entire Kočevska region, that is. Now they give shelter to animals, while in times of yore they also provided shelter to people. The karst floor in the Kočevska region is reminiscent of Emmentaler cheese or a sponge-like structure. 

Currently, there are 12,589 caves registered in Slovenia, but according to the online cave database additional 300 are discovered each year.

The speleologists recorded the Koblarska cave, known also as the Long cave (cat. No. 949), in 1927, while the first cave sketch was drawn by M. Bukovec two years later. The cave was (re-)discovered in the 19^thcentury when K. Moser dug out bones of eight individuals. After him, many people have explored it, and in 1995 a systematic research was conducted by the following four individuals: Pavel Jamnik. Petra Leben-Seljak, Janez Bizjak and Brane Horvat. We can say it was re-discovered since remains of bones of 13 persons and a heap of shards of crockery, whose origin dates back to the Bronze Age, were found in it. According to the author of the article that was published seventeen years ago in the Archaeology Journal, the Koblarska jama cave that branches out in four sections, was a prehistoric cult place and a burial ground. That is, a place discovered by the people already in the times of the Neolithic, if not sooner. They buried their dead in rocky niches. According to the authors, man chose it as a burial ground exactly for its niches that could evoke the notions of the return to Mother Earth.

According to ancient people’s belief, the caves and their entrances were symbolically reminiscent of the womb, the vulva. The cave that is located near a forest road and therefore easily accessible is not classified among the longest, neither among the deepest, but – in right weather – it certainly is among the most beautiful. It is distinguished by dripstone pillars, the above-mentioned interplay of water and the floor offering a magnificent show when the lighting is right.

Not far away from the Koblarska jama cave lies the Black cave (cat. No. 2934). It is one of six Slovenian caves bearing this name. A vast, mostly horizontal cave, whose entrance is secured with an iron grate conceals black stalagmites, stalactites and pillars. Unfortunately, many of them are covered with inscriptions or broken. The recognisable colour stretches all the way until the end of the 258-metre long “tunnel”. Towards the end of the 19^thcentury, inscriptions were found on the walls, and that is why they assume that it served as a shelter for people.

The geologists attempted to prove the source of the dark layers using different methods, i.e. by researching lumps of calcareous sinter, insoluble remains and polished grindings. The analysis has shown that the sample from the Black cave near Kočevje contains organic matter. However, black layers are most likely the consequence of cave visits, perhaps already from prehistoric times onwards. Otherwise, the geologists don’t rule out the possibility of forest fires, charcoal burning activity in the vicinity, humic materials from the ground, activity of the micro-organisms and/or air pollution that can under certain climatic conditions penetrate far into the interior of the cave.

The exploration of caves requires appropriate footwear, a torch and company. However, the Underground Cave Protection Act stipulates that the caves must be protected and that we should not damage them (i.e. never break dripstones or leave inscriptions on them), and should preserve the cave living world and therefore handle them in such a way that the cave and the cave world are in no way compromised. 

Sources:
– Jamnik. P, Leben-Seljak P., Bizjak J., Horvat B: The Koblarska jama cave in the Kočevska region – a prehistoric burial ground and cult place, anthropological analysis of skeletal remains with an adjoining description of burial gifts; Archaeological Journal (Arh. vest.) 53, 2002, pp. 31-49
– 4. Slovenski geološki kongres, Ankaran, 8.-10. oktober 2014.

More interesting facts about Kočevska (Gottschee) region in our other posts i.e.: https://www.kocevskibrlog.com/kocevje-little-bombs/

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