"They are very difficult to find," says Ulmanová, the leader of a group of some 50 volunteers who aim to protect the dwindling lynx population in this area of south Bohemia.

Her patrol is not the only one. The chronic poaching problem in the Czech Republic, coupled with the government's inability to stop it, has prompted a handful of other organizations — usually involving small batches of villagers — to try and hunt down poachers on their own.

A similar wolf patrol sprang up eight years ago in the mountains of Beskydy, north Moravia. Last February, environmental organization Hnutí Duha offered 20,000 Kč ($891) to anyone who reported a lynx poacher. It later upped the reward to 50,000 Kč.

Lynxes and wolves are protected by the government, but hunters still try to kill the predators for sport or because they say that the animals harm wild game and domestic animals.

"Somebody needs to protect them," Ulmanová says.

Tough criminals to catch

Poaching is threatening to eradicate the lynx and wolf populations in the Czech Republic.

Hunters have illegally killed some 500 endangered lynxes in the past two decades, leaving an estimated 30 wild cats in Šumava and one in Beskydy. There are no more lynxes in north Bohemia.

Last winter, a group of environmentalists equipped 14 lynxes with radio devices to monitor their movements and determine just how threatening poachers were; by February, poachers had killed eight.

The situation is worse for wolves. Only about 15 remain in Beskydy.

The number of reported poaching cases has fallen during the past five years, from more than 700 cases in 2001 to 369 last year. But officials say that's because poachers have become more organized and thus harder to catch.

"Poachers now work very carefully, have good equipment, and often work in groups," says Jana Šípková, spokeswoman for the regional authorities in south Moravia. "This makes it hard for the police."

Josef Kurča of the Pardubice District Hunting Association says poachers have started operating from multiple cars, with one group killing the animals and another group picking them up.

This method makes it almost impossible to prove someone committed a crime because it is legal to keep dead animals found in the forest, says Karel Klodner of the Svitavy District Hunting Association.

"The days of a lone poacher sneaking through the forest with a small gun are long gone," says Štěpán Neuwirth, a forest industry expert.

No one watching

State police — who would not comment for this story — do not have a special department that deals with poachers, and poaching cases are left to regional police who don't have the time and resources needed to track them.

Officials say they have a hard time even noticing poaching trends due to poor statistics on wild animals.

"In our opinion, nobody sees the missing animals because nobody counts them," says Dušan Klícha, a south Bohemian regional spokesman.

The Environment Ministry has approved a project that would further track and protect endangered animals like lynxes and wolves, but it currently lacks funding, Ulmanová says.

Poachers are not just going after predators, says Jiří Staněk with the fish company Lesy a rybníky České Budějovice. Homeless people and professionals frequently pull fish that the company breeds in its 50 to 60 ponds throughout south Bohemia.

Some fish companies have even taken to hiring security guards to combat the thieves.

"Poachers know the places well, and they are clever and very fast," Staněk says.

Poachers also commonly hunt roe deer out of season. Bucks can only be killed from May to September, does and fawns from September to December.

Even when police catch a poacher, it is often the result of an unrelated traffic stop or another crime.

Such was the case with Josef Konečný, the 41-year-old south Bohemian man whom Czech media dubbed "the poacher of the century."

Last year, Konečný allegedly shot out the windows of a house he thought was occupied by his wife, and later, while driving home, shot a 22-year-old driver in the neck. When police came to arrest him, they found 1,350 deer antlers estimated to be worth more than 8 million Kč.

Like many poachers, Konečný was a member of his local hunting union before being kicked out 13 years ago for poaching a deer. An anonymous poll of 200 members of the 140,000-member Czech-Moravian Hunting Association last year found that 10 percent of hunters had killed at least one lynx.

Konečný is currently on trial for the alleged shootings, and the State Attorney's Office says it will hand the poaching case to the Brno District Court at the end of October.

Sticking together

Ulmanová's group conducts infrequent patrols through the 690-square-kilometer (265-square-mile) Šumava National Park, which goes a long way to explain why her group has not caught a single poacher.

And they're not getting any help from nearby residents.

"There is a lot of solidarity among the locals," she says. "They stick together, and even if a whole village knows who the local poachers are, they won't tell."

Still, Ulmanová remains optimistic that her patrols are forcing poachers to keep one eye over their shoulders — for now.

"The locals are aware of the patrols, and it is effective because poachers are discouraged by the mere possibility of a patrol walking the forest," she says. "In a word, they tend to believe we have more power than we actually have."