Study area
The study was part of research conducted by Foundation conservation
Carpathia (FCC) to estimate the density of lynx in the Romanian
Carpathians (Iosif et al., 2022). The study area is situated in the
Southern Carpathians, Romania, covering 1,200 km2 in
the eastern part of the Făgăraș Mountains, Piatra Craiului, and parts of
Leaota Mountains (Figure 1). The altitude of the study area ranges from
600 to 2400 meters. Forests cover most of the area (62%), along with a
mosaic of urban-rural landscape and agriculture with significant areas
of natural vegetation (22%), and alpine grasslands and subalpine shrubs
(16%). Although bisected by a high traffic national road, the area is
recognized as a corridor for large carnivore dispersal. The road network
is dominated by unpaved forest roads and temporary logging roads. Large
carnivore hunting is not allowed in the study area. However,
anthropogenic disturbance persists in the form of year-round selective
logging, regulated hunting of ungulates, and livestock grazing.