Harz National Park  Harz National Park is a nature reserve in the German federal states of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. It comprises portions of the western Harz mountain range, extending from Herzberg and Bad Lauterberg at the southern edge to Bad Harzburg and Ilsenburg on the northern slopes. 95 % of the area is covered with forests, mainly with spruce and beech woods, including several bogs, granite rocks and creeks. The park is part of the Natura 2000 network of the European Union. In its current form, the park was created on January 1, 2006 by the merger of the Harz National Park in Lower Saxony, established in 1994, and the Upper Harz National Park in Saxony-Anhalt, established in 1990. As the former inner German border ran through the Harz, large parts of the range were prohibited areas, that apart from the fortifications had remained completely unaffected for decades. Today the park covers parts of the districts of Goslar, Göttingen and Harz. Rare animals of the Harz National Park include the dipper, the black stork, peregrine falcon, the European wildcat and especially the Eurasian lynx. The last lynx in the Harz Mountains had been shot in 1818, but in 1999 a project for reintroducing was established. Since 2002 several wild lynxes gave birth. An attempt to return the capercaillie ("Auerhuhn") however did not succeed. The 24,700 hectares of the Harz National Park cover about 10 per cent of the total area of the Harz. The park lies in the western part of the Harz (see Upper Harz) and stretches from Wernigerode and Ilsenburg in the north to Herzberg and Bad Lauterberg in the south. Near its perimeter the park terrain is about in the north and in the south and climbs to at the summit of the Brocken. Several rivers have their sources in the national park, including the Bode, the Oder and the Ilse, a tributary of the Oker. The waters of the Oder, flowing southwards, are collected in the historic Oderteich reservoir, finished in 1722 to supply the mines in Sankt Andreasberg, and feed the Oder Dam on the southeastern edge of the park. Other dams and lakes within or bordering on the national park include the Ecker Dam and the Silberteich.