Golden jackal vagrant was sighted in Tuscany, Italy

The golden jackal on the way to Rome

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Rome, 7 December 2021 – Unstoppable, the journey of the golden jackal in Italy.

"The Canis aureus left on a distant day dal Gange, after 40 years in our country he arrived in Tuscany. The one of Montemurlo (Prato) it’s just the latest report. The ‘street sweeper’ who eats everything is ‘undermining’ his most direct opponent, the wolf."

Text Source: here, Italy24News

Video Source: here La Repubblica

"How many are and where

But how many are the specimens of this protected species? The Quaderni of the Civic Museum of Natural history of Ferrara have just published a study photographing the presence of the golden jackal with us. At the end of September, write Luca Lapini, Stefano Pecorella, Mauro Ferri and Marta Villa, “the species is currently widespread throughout northern Italy, at least as far south as the Province of Ravenna. It is estimated that they are now present in this vast area of ​​the Italian Peninsula 196-250 specimens divided into at least 37-47 territorial reproductive groups “. Then the sighting of Monemurlo was added. So today the canis aureus is lord in Friuli Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Trentino Alto Adige, Emilia Romagna and Tuscany.

The cities But our jackal does not disdain cities. From Udine to Venice, from Osoppo to Pordenone, from Trieste to Gorizia, from Modena to Parma a Reggio Emilia, “looking for poultry and household waste often collected around public landfills or ecological pitches, which he constantly frequents also to catch rats “(again from the Notebooks). Jackals and wolves

In common they have a passion for chicken coops. End. “We have the feeling that the presence of wolves can only slow expansion of the golden jackal. But evidently, they manage to coexist, at least at low densities – this is the analysis of Lapini, zoologist -. We are witnessing an unprecedented scenario. The beginning of the expansion of the Canis aureus was guaranteed by the killing of the Balkan wolves, reduced to the light in the mid-1950s. Now the expansion is very pronounced, mainly due to the fact that this is a scavenger animal, which finds the main source of resources in man “. And how is he distinguished from the wolf, with whom he continues to be habitually confused?” The most characteristic trait – warns the zoologist – is the white-collar at the base of the neck “.

Protected species

The law 157 of 1992, as the Tolmezzo Forestry, also protects this species. Anyone who kills or captures a specimen risks arrest for two to eight months or a fine from 774 a 2.065 euro. What do they eat

The reputation of scavengers is well deserved. Confirmed by autopsies. Again from the Notebooks of the Ferrara museum: “Whole pieces have been found in various gastric tracts bags of polyethylene used for the delivery of household waste to ecological pitches – swallowed with the entire content, edible or not (leather, cigarette butts, electric wires, etc.) – pieces of plastic, rubber “. The response for the man is without appeal. “We are wasteful”, Lapini’s synthesis."

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GOJAGE gojage(at)goldenjackal.eu

Up to date situation of the golden jackal distribution in Italy, 2019

Nuove Presenze, problemi vecchi: il caso dello sciacallo dorato (Canis aureus) in Italia (here)

di Luca LAPINI

luca.lapini@comune.udine.it
Museo Friulano di Storia Naturale
Via Sabbadini 32, I-33100 UDINE

L’espansione dello sciacallo dorato in Italia sembra comunque aver attraversato tre fasi differenti.

–Prima fase (1984-1996): caratterizzata da discreto dinamismo, ha portato ad una prima segnalazione nel Veneto Prealpino, ad alcuni eventi di riproduzione nelle Province di Udine e Belluno e alla colonizzazione del Carso Isontino (Lapini et al., 2018).

–Seconda fase (1997-2008): caratterizzata da una evidente stasi dell’espansione e da una forte riduzione delle presenze complessive, ha comunque portato ad una prima riproduzione nel Muggesano (Istria settentrionale, Provincia di Trieste) e nelle valli del Natisone (Prealpi Giulie, Provincia di Udine), con presenze sempre più diffuse sul Carso Isontino (Provincia di Gorizia) (Lapini et al., 2018).

–Terza fase (2009-2018): periodo di fortissima espansione, distinto da un ulteriore successo riproduttivo nel Veneto alpino (Provincia di Belluno), da vari episodi riproduttivi in Carnia (Prealpi Carniche, Provincia di Udine) e in Alto Adige (Provincia di Bolzano), nelle Valli del Natisone (Prealpi Giulie, Provincia di Udine), sul Carso Isontino (Provincia di Gorizia) e nelle aree steppico magredili dell’alta pianura pordenonese (Provincia di Pordenone) (Lapini et al., 2018).

Il primo gruppo riproduttivo di queste zone, localizzato nell’inverno 2015, è stato raggiunto dai lupi ai primi di ottobre 2016 ed è stato da questi decimato nel quadro di un fenomeno di intra-guild competition culminato con l’uccisione di una femmina dell’anno.

Nel 2017 si sono verificati diversi episodi riproduttivi anche sul Carso sloveno a ridosso del confine con la Provincia di Trieste, con la formazione di alcuni gruppi transfrontalieri. Questi ultimi, pur esercitando gran parte dell’attività nella finitima Repubblica di Slovenia, frequentano anche parte della Provincia di Trieste (zona di Medeazza, Malchina, Monte Lanaro-Fernetti, Alta Val Rosandra). Il grande dinamismo del 2017, forse stimolato proprio dall’incontro coi lupi, ha portato ad una grande dispersione di animali, con presenze isolate in Lombardia (Val Brembana, Provincia di Bergamo) e in Emilia Romagna (Provincia di Modena), a Sud del Po. In val Brembana (Provincia di Bergamo) un esemplare isolato è stato fototrappolato diverse volte tra la località di quota di Carisole (giugno 2017), la periferia del sottostante paese di Valleve e la località di Isola di Fondra (foto S. Locatelli 2017-2019).

A golden jackal was video-recorded south to Po river, Modena Italy

GOJAGE LETTERS 

Possible reproductive group on southern part of Po River

by Luca Lapini

Video: Raffaele Gemmato 

On 5th of June 2017, in the evening, a golden jackal has been video recorded by Raffaele Gemmato (field Ornithologist) near the Village of Mirandola, in Modena Province, south of the Po river.

Golden Jackal picture from Raffaele Gemmato recorded video 

 approximation of the record by GOJAGE © 2017 (Po basemap source: Wikipedia)

The video was sent first to Luca Giussani, then to Adriano Martinoli << Unità di Analisi e Gestione delle Risorse Ambientali >> who sent it to GOJAGE representative in Italy, our colleague Luca Lapini.

The video was uploaded in the mailing list of Astore a Friulian naturalistic association. It was analyzed and seems that the golden jackal is an adult male.

On Friday 9th of June 2017 a team will conduct BAM (BioAcoustic Monitoring) in the area and will analyze the ecological factors to assess better the last C1 (strong evidence) sighting.

Alture di Polazzo, NE Italy

Jackals in countryside habitat. Gorizia province, Italy

Videos recorded recently in Gorizia show a pair of jackals on 2nd of February 2012 then another specimen on 18th of February 2012. Another individual was registered on 12th of August 2012. The films author,  Bio agriturismo e parco rurale Alture di Polazzo wonders how this group has been established in the area. Countryside and agroturism activity may explain the crowd. Even so, road mortality continue to be a expansion and growth limiting factor of Canis aureus species in these regions. (see L. Lapini et al 2011). To understand better the overview of this situation look on Italian jackals, Gorizia province post uploaded on 10th of Sept 2012.

Interpretation 

1) At the beginning of 2012 (2nd of February), one pair of jackals was recorded in the region (1st video); On the 10th of February 2011 a female of 9.7 kg was road killed (see L. Lapini et al 2011); On the 18th of February 2012 one robust specimen was recorded at the same place having the note as female! (2nd video). 

If we track better the record (2nd video), we can see how the protagonist raises his right leg when he marks his territory. We are looking to a male, maybe the same specimen recorded in the area on 29th of March 2012 by our collegue S. Pecorella

2)The supposed young photo-trapped (3rd video) in loc. Alture di Polazzo (Doberdo' del Lago, Gorizia) it was not a young. In that season a young have 4-5 kg. The photo-trapped specimen, on the contrary, is surely a full developed individual, at the end of the summer moult (and for this reason particularly slender). Probably a female, perhaps the same specimen photo-trapped later and before. The last young from this zone, a female of about 11 months, was road killed on 10 February 2011 (see Lapini et al., 2011).

3)CONCLUSIONS

To conclude this hypothesis we have to admit the limits of phototrapping method:

- We cannot do biometry, body measurement and during IR-night condition sex differentiation being also very difficult;

- In the last two year, anyway, in the same zone one adult male was found dead and a young female was road killed by cars. We don't know if they were effective of the above quoted reproductive group. A genetic mapping of jackal specimens, conducted by Friulian Museum of Natural History in Udine, started in the area, and we hope that DNA analysis could gather further information about their true parental links. 

- The best current estimate for this zone, at present, is 2-5 specimens. 

(Luca Lapini, Ovidiu Banea & Stefano Pecorella)

Italian jackals, Gorizia Province

Recent identification of a possible reproductive group of golden jackal in Italy

Stefano Pecorella

A recent picture (7.09.2012) of a pair of jackals obtained on Karst (Carso), in the Province of Gorizia. (Photo: Stefano Pecorella). First specimen (part of it) on this special trail is located just above the black line (the bottom picture), the second has bright eyes. Another individual was recorded in may (9.05.2012).
To see more photos and description of habitat follow the link below:
http://cameratrapping.altervista.org/karst/ 

Luca Lapini

As you know, from the same zone there are a lot of excellent pictures both of jackal and wildcat, together with a lot of samples of both species (road kills, illegally harvested specimens, jackal howling records, etc.).

In this place the presence of the golden jackal was ascertained at least from 1994 to the present (please, see Lapini, 1996 and Lapini et al., 2011). This is surely the oldest Italian reproductive situation, at present constituted by at least two specimens simultaneously present in the wild. A quite realistic jackal-howling estimate suggests that in this zone could be present 2-5 specimens.