Illegal ground traps for cave animals were discovered in Eleonora’s cave

We received information from Department of Biology at Biotechnical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana that at the end of November a large number of illegal ground traps for cave animals were incidentally discovered in Eleonora’s cave on Stojna. Small plastic cups were well hidden and before their removal killed approximately 430 individuals of cave invertebrates including endangered cave beetles.

Such non-selective traps which are sometimes left in caves for over a year pose a significant threat to conservation of unique cave fauna. Similar traps were also found by Croatian colleagues in two caves in Croatia. Therefore we ask everyone to report any findings of such traps to representatives of Life Kočevsko or to the representative of Biotechnical Faculty Teo Delič (teo.delic@bf.uni-lj.si).