Dobrepolje/Ljubljana - Slovenian police have started an investigation into a suspected illegal killing of a female lynx that had been the successful product of an international project concerned with preserving the Dinaric-Alpine lynx population.

The step comes after the GPS collar of a she-cat named Neža, a descendant of a lynx relocated from Romania to Slovenia in 2019 as part of the EU-funded LIFE Lynx project, was found torn with force and stained with Neža's blood in southeastern Slovenia in May.

The event was reported by researchers from the Ljubljana Biotechnical Faculty involved in the project one of whose aims has been to revive the small and heavily inbred population of lynx in Slovenia.

Assistance has also been offered by the Hunters' Association of Slovenia, which announced any poachers would be expelled from the organisation for life.

The Novo Mesto police told the STA the suspected crime was not poaching but illegal handling of protected wildlife species, which carries a sentence of up to three years in prison.

Police said they had been informed of the incident on 12 May and that apart from police officers from Dolenjske Toplice criminal investigators from the Novo Mesto police department were also working on the case.

A report on the investigation was sent to the Novo Mesto District Prosecutor's Office in July, as there have not been sufficient grounds for filing a criminal report. However, the investigation is not over yet, as the results of a detailed analysis of the collar and data provided by the Hunters' Association have not arrived yet, police said.

Seven male and three female lynx have been brought to Slovenia from the Romanian and Slovakian parts of the Carpathian mountains since 2019 as part of LIFE Lynx, which has also included lynx relocations to Croatia.