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| Žiga Ogorelec Now: Where Is the Alone Season 13 Contestant Today? |
Žiga Ogorelec turned his time on History Channel’s Alone season 13 into a serious survival test, but his appearance was never simply about enduring cold and hunger. The Slovenian biologist combined patience, bushcraft knowledge and one very fortunate moose encounter to reach the final three, leaving viewers with plenty to wonder about regarding what he is doing now.
Ogorelec entered the Arctic wilderness with a rather unusual disadvantage: he left a ferrocerium rod out of his ten-item loadout. In other words, one of the most basic survival conveniences was deliberately removed from his kit, meaning every fire had to be created through friction. Because apparently being dropped into the Arctic wasn't quite difficult enough already.
His background, however, meant he was hardly wandering into the wilderness without preparation. With experience in biology, ecology, bushcraft and wilderness training, Ogorelec approached the challenge methodically. Rather than burning through his energy in the opening days, he concentrated on building a workable camp and creating a food strategy that could keep him going as conditions became increasingly demanding.
The moment that changed his fortunes came when Ogorelec successfully hunted a large moose near his camp. The animal did not simply become a quick meal. After shooting it, he resisted the temptation to charge after it immediately and instead followed the blood trail patiently. The moose eventually crossed a body of water overnight, but Ogorelec continued tracking it and ultimately recovered the animal.
That one successful hunt gave him an enormous advantage. The moose provided meat, fat, hide and other useful materials, giving him resources that many competitors could only dream about. In a competition where food supplies can disappear remarkably quickly, having such a large reserve was practically the wilderness equivalent of finding a fully stocked supermarket in the middle of nowhere.
Still, the moose did not magically turn the rest of his journey into a relaxing camping holiday. Ogorelec continued to face the exhausting problem of making friction fires while temperatures became increasingly difficult to manage. As the competition entered its final stage, he carefully rationed his remaining moose meat and made use of its fat to help maintain his energy through the worsening cold.
His success ultimately came from making one major opportunity last as long as possible. Plenty of contestants can find food; the harder part is turning that food into a sustainable long-term strategy. Ogorelec's ability to preserve his resources, remain patient and adapt to changing conditions helped carry him into the final three and established him as one of the season's strongest survivalists.
So, where is Žiga Ogorelec now? Far from abandoning the outdoors after his Alone experience, he has continued combining his scientific career with his long-standing interest in wilderness skills. Ogorelec remains involved in biological research and outdoor education, maintaining a career that is considerably more academic than his television adventure might suggest.
His academic background is particularly impressive. Ogorelec studied General Biology at the University of Ljubljana, completing his bachelor's degree between 2009 and 2012 before earning a master's degree in Ecology and Biodiversity from 2012 to 2015. During his university years, he also spent the 2011–12 academic year in Essen, Germany, as an Erasmus student, completing coursework in both English and German.
In 2017, he moved to Germany to continue his academic career at the University of Konstanz, where he pursued a PhD in Aquatic Biology and Limnology. He completed the doctorate in 2021, with his interests covering areas including limnology, fish-zooplankton interactions, bioremediation and sustainable aquaculture. So yes, the man who was patiently tracking a moose through the Arctic also has a serious scientific CV. Nature clearly gets the full package.
Since May 2021, Ogorelec has worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the National Institute of Biology. His professional life therefore remains closely connected to the natural world, although his working environment presumably involves fewer frozen campsites and slightly more equipment that does not need to be made from whatever happens to be lying around.
His relationship with survival skills goes back much further than Alone. Ogorelec began working as an instructor in survival and wilderness skills in 2009 and has built extensive experience in outdoor activities. He has more than two decades of experience with freshwater and marine angling and spearfishing, while his military background includes 15 weeks of basic training with the Slovenian Armed Forces in 2014.
His appetite for adventure has also taken him well beyond Slovenia. After university, Ogorelec spent a year travelling through 34 countries across five continents, cycling roughly 19,000 kilometres. That journey fits neatly with the image seen on Alone: someone who seems to regard unfamiliar environments less as a reason to panic and more as an invitation to figure things out.
His outdoor work also extends into education. In 2014, Ogorelec co-founded Gozdovništvo – Bushcraft and Survival School with his younger brother, Miha. Ogorelec serves as the school's Chief Instructor, while the brothers continue to share their long-running enthusiasm for bushcraft and wilderness skills. His work has allowed him to pass practical knowledge on to others rather than keeping it locked away as some mysterious survivalist superpower.
He has also used online platforms to share his knowledge through the Science of Survival YouTube channel and Instagram, giving followers another way to explore his approach to wilderness skills. For someone whose Alone strategy relied heavily on patience and preparation, teaching those same principles publicly feels like a fairly natural extension of what he was already doing.
Away from his professional and outdoor pursuits, Ogorelec's family remains an important part of his life. He lives in Ljubljana, Slovenia, with his wife and their young son, Bor, while his family has continued to support his passion for adventure. His wife's encouragement has been particularly important to his ability to pursue a lifestyle that regularly involves stepping well outside the comfort zone.
Fans' reactions to Ogorelec's Alone journey naturally vary. Some viewers see his moose hunt as the defining stroke of fortune that transformed his chances, while others point to the patience, tracking ability and resource management required to actually turn that opportunity into a lasting advantage.
There is also the obvious debate over his decision to go without a ferrocerium rod. Some fans admire the confidence behind the choice; others might reasonably ask why anyone would voluntarily make fire-making harder in the Arctic when the weather is already doing a perfectly good job of making everything miserable.
My view is that Ogorelec's story works because his success was not based on one spectacular moment alone. The moose was undeniably huge for his game, but securing the animal was only the beginning. He then had to process it, preserve its value, ration the food and continue functioning while dealing with brutal conditions and the constant headache of making fire.
His scientific background also adds an interesting layer because his approach feels analytical rather than reckless. He seemed to treat the wilderness as a problem to solve rather than a stage on which to perform. Was he lucky? Absolutely. But luck only becomes useful when someone knows what to do with it.
Ziga Ogorelec clearly did. His journey also makes the contrast between his television adventure and his current academic life surprisingly entertaining: one minute he is dealing with a moose in the Arctic, the next he is back to aquatic biology. Honestly, that is quite a CV.
For now, Žiga Ogorelec continues to balance scientific research, survival education and his passion for the outdoors, making it clear that Alone was another chapter rather than the end of his wilderness story. His career after the show is arguably just as interesting as his time in the Arctic, particularly because he has managed to connect academic research with practical outdoor knowledge in a way few contestants can claim.
Whether viewers remember him primarily as the biologist who landed one of the season's biggest food sources or as the survival instructor who somehow decided friction fires were a perfectly reasonable idea, Ogorelec certainly left an impression. What do you think made the biggest difference in his Alone run — the moose hunt, his survival experience, or his ability to ration resources? Share your take, because this is one contestant whose strategy is definitely worth debating.