It represents a great marketing possibility and the conditions for such tourism, in line with existing legislation, are set by hunting ground managers. The Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning determines a mandatory quota for annual culls, which is then divided between hunting ground managers.

The passion in capturing wild animals and winning hunting trophies is what makes hunting guests visit hunting grounds. Apart from the local hunters, frequent visitors in Slovenia's hunting grounds are also Austrians, Germans and Italians. However, the guests can hunt wild animals only in the company of a local hunter.

The Ljubljanski Vrh special purpose hunting ground is one of the ten hunting grounds managed by the Slovenian Forest Service. These hunting grounds are especially attractive to foreign visitors. Around 1,900 people visited these hunting grounds last year, some of them for several times as they reserved the killing of a larger number of free-living wild animals.

A million euros from hunting tourism
The Slovenian Forest Service received a little over one million euros from hunting tourism last year.

"This money goes back to the hunting grounds in various forms, from technical work to bio-amelioration, with which we improve wildlife living conditions. The money is also used to pay damages caused to land owners and damages caused by wild animals on hunting lands, and also to cover the salaries of those employed at the special purpose hunting grounds," said the forest service.

Hunting grounds managed by hunting clubs also report an increase in the number of hunting guests. Hunting clubs manage most of the hunting land in Slovenia, but the Hunters Association has no precise information on the number of such guests and what they hunt. Certain hunting clubs set the number of wild animals, to be hunted by visitors, on their own.
"We started offering hunting tourism in order to operate our hunting grounds more easily, and the guests represent an income which we then invest in our hunting grounds in various ways," Vojko Lazar, a hunter from the LD Kozina hunting club, told TV Slovenija.

Guests who can afford to go hunting abroad enjoy coming back to Slovenia. Our hunting grounds are still well preserved and rich with wildlife.