Fauna

Males have large, backwards-curving horns. which were believed to have medicinal properties, leading to the species near extinction in the 16th century. They have only survived in the area of Gran Paradiso, Italy. All present-day ibexes in Europe are descendants of the Gran Paradiso population.

In the Triglav National Park the reintroduction of the alpine ibex started in 1964, first in the Zadnjica Valley in Trenta.

The natural predators of chamois are the wolf and lynx, and the mountain eagle who preys on chamois young. Common causes of mortality include jumps from rock cliffs, avalanches, and diseases. In 1909, when an avalanche swept away the Aljažev dom lodge in the Vrata Valley, a total of about 400 chamois were killed by avalanches in the three Triglav valleys of Kot, Krma and Vrata.

Red deer are ruminants foraging mostly on grass, herbs, tree sprouts, bark, leaves and arable crops. They live in herds. Unlike females, males grow large, impressive antlers. During the rut, mature stags make their calls and compete for the attention of the hinds.

Marmots are herbivores and spend most of their awake time collecting preserves for the winter. Excellent diggers, alpine marmots use their sharp forepaws to dig burrow tunnels which provide shelter from predators and the elements. Marmots sleep through winter in winter dens that may be up to five metres deep. During hibernation their body temperature drops and their heart rate and breathing slow down. They survive on stored fat supplies collected over the summer months. Marmots wake up when snow starts to melt away.

Food supply has a strong influence on the fertility of dormice as well as their hibernation process, which normally lasts from October to March. If food is scarce, dormice will even sleep through summer. In the last decades edible dormice in Central Europe have been waking up from hibernation rather early, a phenomenon closely linked to climate change.

Most of the year red foxes lead a solitary life. They either dig their burrows or use the burrows constructed by badgers, and use their urine to mark their territories. Red foxes reproduce once or twice a year, normally in winter. The gestation period lasts 52 days. In spring, the female gives birth to four to eight kits, who stay with their parents for about four months. Vixens help raise the kits. In the wild, red foxes survive an average of three to four years.

Brown bears feed on forest fruits, underground and green parts of plants, fungi, rodents and carrion. As predators, bears are also known to prey on cattle. The brown bear requires a large well-preserved habitat with minimum human impact.

Black grouse live near the tree line, in particular in the dwarf pine stands.Their diet consists of blueberries, cranberries, juniper berries, and small invertebrates found in the soil. During nesting and caring for the young, black grouse are highly sensitive to cold and rainy weather, which can devastate complete nests, thereby affecting local black grouse populations.

The species is renowned for its mating display. In spring the males gather at courting grounds, called leks, posture themselves with raised and fanned tail feathers and sing their typical aria, which sounds like a series of 'clicks' and 'pops'. It is generally known that the capercaillie do not respond to any activity in their surrounding while singing. Otherwise, the bird is very shy.

In winter the males can be distinguished from the females by a dark stripe that extends from behind each eye to the bill. Both males and females have a red comb above their eyes.

In spring females moult earlier than males. This way, the female incubating its eggs is still safely camouflaged, while the male's white winter plumage distracts predators away from the nest.  The bird nests in mid-June. It lays 6-15 eggs into a shallow pit and incubates them for approximately 24 days. It feeds on seeds, fruits, sprouts, buds, leaves, and adds insects and other animals to its diet in the summer.

Unlike other owls, the Eurasian pygmy owl is mostly active at dawn, dusk, and even daytime during nesting period. At night the owl rests, and its call can only exceptionally be heard during bright, moonlit nights. When excited, the owl will cock its tail, flicking it from side to side.

The bird has several forms of voice communication. It uses a special call when it is at home and other calls are used for mating time, time to flee, or danger alert. Black woodpeckers feed on insects found in decaying tree trunks, ants being their favourite food.

White-throated dippers are most commonly found near the Savica Waterfall and the rivers Radovna and Soča. Their population is threatened by regulation of streams and rivers, human disturbance during nesting, and pollution of surface waters.

Its grey upper parts contrast with whitish under parts and yellow vent and tail. The feet are reddish-brown, unlike in other vagrants, which have black feet. 

Grey wagtails build nests among the roots of shoreline vegetation, in holes in manmade structures near water, and on bridge supports. The nest is made of moss, dry grass blades and small roots, and bedded with animal hairs. The bird feeds mainly on insects and insect larvae.

It nests in vertical cracks in steep rocks and overhangs. In autumn Alpine swifts migrate to tropical Africa and India. Their diet consists mainly of insects, which they snatch whilst in flight.

It is a predator, able to snatch up large animals, e.g. hares, capercaillie, marmots or foxes, and even chamois kits. It is not uncommon that the prey will exceed the eagle's body size and will need lots of energy to be taken away.

Golden eagles nest in inaccessible and hidden rock shelves, rock crevices, and an occasional tree. The female lays two eggs. After about 40 days, the young will hatch, but only a quarter of them will ever reach maturity.

It subsides on a diet of invertebrates, carrion, fruit and seeds. Near mountain lodges and on summits it will readily feed on food waste, and often persuade hikers and skiers to give them a treat form their backpacks.

In autumn the willow tit stashes away the surplus of seeds for winter feeding. When winter starts they move from high-altitude forests to lower altitude woods.  In Slovenia the willow tit is a relatively common resident bird, with distribution area spanning from the Julian Alps to the Pohorje range.

During nesting wallcreepers reside in shady and humid precipitous rock faces, building a cup nest into rocks hollows or on a pile of rocks. In warmer parts of the Alps, the wallcreeper starts nesting at the end of April, but most birds will nest between May and June. Outside the nesting period, wallcreepers reside in rocky sites at lower altitudes.

The Soča trout is famous for its relatively large head and a characteristic marbled colour pattern on a grey-white skin. It is among the most threatened species, its population declining because of pollution, destruction of the natural environment and, most importantly, ongoing crossbreeding with the brook trout, which was brought to the Soča trout's natural habitat at the beginning of the 20th century.

Females lay the eggs within a crack in the bark of decaying and old beech trees. The development from the egg over larva and pupa lasts three to four years. Rosalia longicorns often lay the eggs in lumber stored in the forest. If the lumber is transported and processed fast, the eggs are lost. The decline in the species population is also due to the removal of old and decaying beech trees and reforestation with spruce.

They are an important source of food for fish, aquatic birds and other predators. Most caddisflies species live near springs and in streams, less frequently in standing water bodies. Due to their high sensitivity to pollution, caddisflies play a significant role in bioassessment surveys conducted in streams and other water bodies.

The common adder feeds on small mammals, birds, lizards and amphibians. It paralyses its prey with a bite and then swallows the victim whole.

Adders are particularly common in the mountains, on scree slopes, near mountain trails, meadows, pasturelands and wetlands. In the lowlands, they keep close to places where humidity is high.

It prefers mixed forests, areas above the tree line, grasslands and rocky pasturelands. The species has efficiently adapted to life at higher elevations and in the dry karst territory. Thanks to its black skin, the salamander warms up fast in the sun even in the cold mountains.

Unlike other amphibians, the salamander does not need water to reproduce. The female gives birth to live young, who look like mature specimens and are able to live on land. The phenomenon is known as ovoviviparity.

The females can grow up to 12 cm, and the males are slightly smaller. Unlike in other newts, the belly of an alpine newt is bright orange-red. Alpine newts often undergo incomplete transformation, which means that individuals may be sexually mature but will retain certain characteristics of a larva, e.g. gills. Such newts were found in the lake Črno jezero and the lake on the Planina pri Jezeru.