The Golden Jackal from Pokljuka travels to Katschberg

Maj, a GPS-collared Golden Jackal from Slovenia arrived at a Ski-Resort in Austria

The Golden Jackal is roaming now 125 km away from the place where it was captured. The dispersion started at the beginning of November 2023.

News from Dr Hubert POTOČNIK,  

GOJAGE Slovenia

Research Group for Animal Ecology

Biotechnical Faculty, Department of Biology

Ljubljana Slovenia

"The Golden Jackal, named Maj by the hunter who helped in his catch, was collared on 21st of June 2023. It is a young male of one year and a half old. The jackal was captured as a bycatch within the LIFE Wolfalps EU project while capturing/collaring wolves in the wolf pack territory on Pokljuka Mt. plateau in the Julian Alps (1400 - 1600 m a.s.l.).  The largest straight line distance between the locations of his movement is about 120 km, if we don't account for relief altitude. However, after he held some temporary - transient territories he started with dispersal at the beginning of  November and traveled around 140 km (straight-line distances between points) which means more than 280 km on the relief.

Data: Dr. Hubert Potočnik, 30.11.2023

Pokljuka is a 20 km long and 18 km wide alpine plateau located in the Triglav National Park between Bled and Bohinj. It is covered with pine tree forests and pastures and spans at the altitude which ranges from 1100 to 1400 m above sea level. Source: finestayslovenia

At capture we obtained a genetic sample, however, we haven't analyzed it yet, but we expect it originates from the Panonnian population as the great majority of jackals in Slovenia (~95%).

The altitudes he crossed were about 1760m when crossing the Karawanken on entering Austria (14-15.11.) and the highest altitude at Millstatt Alps1950m he reached the ski-slope area at Katschberg and has been staying currently a bit south of it for now. "

Data: Dr. Hubert Potočnik, 30.11.2023

The Golden Jackal is now near a Ski Resort area, Katschberg, close to the village of Katschberghöhe which unites two Austrian federal states, Carinthia and Salzburg.

Katschberg, Austria

Dr Jennifer Hatlauf, a GOJAGE member from Austria and researcher at Die Universität für Bodenkultur Wien (BOKU) announced that this unique feature represents an opportunity to get more insight into the Golden Jackal behavior and it is not clear if this individual is only crossing the country or it establishes a permanent settlement in Austria: „Die Beobachtung dieses jungen männlichen Schakals von Slowenien nach Österreich bieteteinzigartige Einblicke in die Verhaltensmuster und Anpassungsfähigkeit der Art. Es bleibt jetzt zu beobachten, ob das Tier Österreich nur durchquert, oder es als seinen dauerhaften Lebensraum auswählt.“ Source: BOKU

For now, the Golden Jackal made a U-turn and stopped at the Ski-resort! Did he find a mate?

 A Golden Jackal male walked from Pokljuka to Katschberg in the last three weeks!

The secrets of the Golden Jackal Alphabet

The Golden Jackal repertoire

by Ovidiu C. Banea

Golden Jackal talks, vocalizations, and even the "letters of the songs" the species plays during the night are now closer to being known by humans.

Eurasian Golden Jackal

Canis aureus moreoticus (Geoffroy, 1835)

Photo: Ovidiu C. Banea, January 2023

Briefly, the sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid, or solid. Acoustic waves that have frequencies lying between about 20 Hz and 20 kHz, the audio frequency range, elicit an auditory percept in humans. Sound waves above 20 kHz are known as ultrasound and are not audible to humans. Sound waves below 20 Hz are known as infrasound. Different animal species have varying hearing ranges.

Herz is the measure of frequency and 1Hz means 1 cycle/second (time unit).

During the Kerkini Jackal Week meeting, Biologist Uthpala Jayaweera and Professor in Zoology Sampath Seneviratne from the University of Colombo showed the participants sonograms of the Sri Lankan Golden Jackal subspecies - Canis aureus naria (Wroughton, 1916) recorded howls and suggested that the "alphabet" has 23 syllables forming 5 vocalization types.

Sri Lankan Golden Jackal

Canis aureus naria (Wroughton, 1916)

Photo: Charles J. Sharp, February 2022

But one of the most interesting aspects is that some of the Golden Jackal emitted sounds are perceived by us with a range between 500 and 2500 Hz. Even more, there are patterns of "singing jackals" that can be reproduced by humans.

by Biologist Uthpala Jataweera

Janka Durova (Slovakia), Sampath Seneviratne (Sri Lanka), 

Uthpala Jataweera (Sri Lanka), and Ovidiu C. Banea (Romania)

at Kerkini village, Greece (28.10.2023)

After a brief introduction to the spectral analysis of golden jackals sustained by Prof Seneviratne

Professor in zoology Sampath Seneviratne

Sonograms of the golden jackals were studied in Europe by Laszlo Szabo from Hungary (2009-2011), and by sound Engineer Carlo Comazzi (2015) in Italy. 

Source: Carlo Comazzi, Silvana Mattiello, Olivier Friard, Stefano Filacorda & Marco Gamba (2016): Acoustic monitoring of golden jackals in Europe: setting the frame for future analyses, Bioacoustics, DOI: 10.1080/09524622.2016.1152564

In Romania, the first sonograms were analyzed by Carlo Comazzi using recordings from "Danubius Jackal Camp" 2017, a wildlife survey organized in the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve.

Spectral analysis of wild canid chorus was also used in wolves and the technique was suggested as an important tool complementary to other methods during the monitoring of the species. "Compared with other monitoring techniques (i.e., genetic analysis), bioacoustic analysis requires widely available informatics tools (i.e., sound recording set of devices and sound analysis software) and a low budget. Information obtained by means of chorus analysis can also be combined with that provided by other techniques. Moreover, howls can be recorded and stored in an audio file format with a good resolution (i.e. in “Wave” format), thus representing a useful tool for future listening and investigations, which can be countlessly employed without risks of time deterioration." Passilongo et al, 2015.

Wolves chorus spectral analysis (sonograms), Passilongo et al, 2015.

Source: Visualizing sound: counting wolves by using a spectral view of the chorus howling | Frontiers in Zoology | Full Text (biomedcentral.com) 

Spectral analyses of golden jackal howlings: 24th of October - 4th of November 2023

Wilde canids "singing" at Kerkini Lake

Red fox and Golden Jackal yip-howl ending of a specific howl followed by new linear vocalization

One or two golden jackal individuals chorus

Recording of a Golden Jackal territorial group. The low-frequency trace indicated a bigger size specimen. In the area wolves are present.

Two human voices imitating a jackal chorus

Comparative analysis between Golden Jackal howlings and human voices imitating the jackals

Hunting and spectral analysis of Golden Jackal chorus

The spectral analysis of wild canids shows different patterns if golden jackals are aggressively hunted with shot individuals almost every day, how occurred in the past at a waste dump in Trpanj (Croatia), where jackals replied from different angles at the same time during 2 minutes, with ununiform howlings and disorganized pattern. When there is NO Hunting or poaching, the Golden Jackal communicating behavior and territorial responses are organized with a consequent reply from every group with a total average of 27-35 seconds duration / each jackal chorus,

Golden Jackals, Gray Wolves and Red Fox at Kerkini Lake National Park in Greece

Canis aureus, Canis lupus, and Vulpes vulpes together at Lake Kerkini National Park, Greece

23.10.2023-29.10.2023 Golden Jackal Week Workshop

by Ovidiu C. Banea

The mixture of individual patterns of vocalizations in wild canids is shown in the above picture. Note the overlapping noise with low frequency at the second 30´.

First sonogram realized with howls from Kerkini Lake NP by Carlo Comazzi Italy

Single Golden Jackal individual, call registered in 2010 in Slovenia by Miha Krofel

Spectral acoustics of a single jackal howling with specific yip-howl ending

Sonogram recorded at Kerkini Lake NP in which is visible the group transfer in a friendly environment, without hunting pressure.

After the barks (possibly Red fox barking at 700 Hz) together with a yip-howl-specific ending (1200-1300 Hz) a lower-frequency sound (500 Hz) is also recorded.

Participants at Kerkini Lake, Golden Jackal Week

 

"Kerkini Holistic Model" in golden jackal monitoring

 

KERKINI CANIS PROJECT

From 23 to 28 October 2023, the Kerkini Golden Jackal Week within the CANIS PROJECT took place at Kerkini Lake in Greece and it was organized by scientists from Kerkini National Park Administration and scientists from Thessaloniki University

Director of the event

Theodoros Kominos

BSc Zoology - Ecology, MSc Conservation Biology

PhD Candidate in Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

THESSALONIKI, GREECE

by Ovidiu Banea

Crispus NGO Sibiu ROMANIA presented a work entitled:

"Applied ecology and Sustainable monitoring of the golden jackal-specific ecological systems with bioacoustic and video trapping methods. Case study: Danube Delta" PPT HERE.