For the enormous variety of wildlife that calls Horgany Natural Reserve home, it is an almost ideal habitat: the lush landscape offers nearly perfect conditions that allow the numerous animal species in the Reserve to thrive and thus breed. Reflecting these idyllic living conditions, the flora and fauna in the Reserve have flourished in recent years like never before.

The Horgany Naturae Reserve is an example of a forest-steppe category reserve, characterized by a temperate-climate habitat type, and consisting of areas interspersed with and forest. Over 80% of the Reserve’s territory is covered with century-old forests, largely mixed forests, with species including:>

• beech, endemic to temperate Europe
• fir, a species that flourishes over mountainous regions
• spruce, in the northern temperate and boreal regions
• cedar, also often found at high altitudes
• And pine, native to most of the Northern hemisphere. A vast area of mountain-pine krummholz growth is located above the Reserve’s forest belt, and rare Swiss stone pine forest stands are located at altitudes of 1,000–1,400 meters.

Rare and native plant species include:

• several orchid species
• perennial honesty, found in wooded regions of Europe
• martagon lily, native to a wide region from central Europe through northern Asia
• and wolf’s bane, endemic to mountainous parts of the northern hemisphere

The topographical variety of the Horgany Natural Reserve landscape contributes to it being an ideal setting for many species of wildlife, including some endangered species. Some of these include:

• red deer, some of the largest of which  have been found in the Horgany region
• roe deer, which has appeared on IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and has not been observed in the Reserve for several years.
• wild boars
• foxes
• wolves
• brown bears
• lynxes, found in high-altitude forests with dense cover of shrubs, reeds, and grass. The lynx is also recognized as an endangered species and protected by law. As a result of their preference for the humanly-inaccessible mountain regions and their scarce numbers, the lynx is rarely observed. A lynx sighting hasn’t been reported in the Reserve for at least 10 years.
• marmots
• and Alpine newts, also recognized in the IUCN Red List, though categorized as “lower risk”

Horgany birdlife includes:

• The black cock, which has suffered declining populations in recent years
• The wood grouse, a bird species that has experienced decreased numbers due to habitat degradation and, in some areas outside of the Reserve, excessive hunting.
• The Carpathian starling, a native bird species that is thought to be extinct and that has not been observed in the wild in over 27 years
• The blue titmouse
• The steppe eagle
• The quail
• And the skylark