Seminar for nature guides- successful in rainy weather

In cooperation with Public Institute for Culture and Tourism Kočevje, we have organised an educational seminar “Responsible wolf tourism”. We gathered at the Jezero Tourist Information Centre in Kočevje, where the theoretical part of the seminar took place. The participants were introduced to the biology and ecology of the wolf and interesting stories from the life of wolves, that were monitored via telemetry. They learned about guidelines for responsible wolf tourism, examples of responsible tourism programmes and the basics of forest pedagogy. After a warm snack, we went out into the field with the field biologists. Weather conditions were not the best but the field trip exceeded our expectations: we found red deer prints in the mud, explored a cave used by badgers, and were surprised by a real wolf scat on the grass. We played a few games as part of the forest pedagogy: we listened to different sounds in the forest, thought about the food web and turned into wolves, weasels and mice for a few moments. While playing in the forest, we also came across a lynx prey. A total of 25 participants took part in the seminar.

Seminar programme:

• Biology and Ecology of Wolves, Jaka Črtalič, Biotehnical faculty, University of Ljubljana
• Interesting stories of wolves, Bernarda Bele, Biotehnical faculty, University of Ljubljana
• Guidelines for responsible wolf tourism, Irena Kavčič, Biotehnical faculty, University of Ljubljana
• Best practice tourism programmes, Nevenka Klun, Public Institute for Culture and Tourism Kočevje
• Practical approaches to forest pedagogy, Urša Vilhar, Forestry Institute of Slovenia
• The field trip was led by Franc Kljun, Department of Biology, Biotehnical faculty, University of Ljubljana.

Photo: Irena Kavčič