Some Estonian scientists recognize jackal´s natural colonization of the country

by Ovidiu C Banea

The third hunted jackal in Estonia has led to a number of natural scientists of the opinion that this species may have reached Estonia in a natural way, and that crowding as alien species can not be justified.

Estonian TV news

Zoologist Matti Masing is the first Estonian scientist who said that jackal does not cause major ecological disturbances to ecosystems and according to studies and reports from other countries, there were no reported dangers, referring to the third specimen killed in Parnu County in western Estonia on December 9, 2013. 

Zoologist Alexei Turovski said the Jackal was not settled in, and that "we would have more wolves and jackal crowding is more justified."

Natural colonization of the country is subject of discussions in Estonia, human introduced species hypothesis being now on second place.

Estonia's current official position is that the Jackal poses a threat to ground-nesting birds and small mammals, and may thus endanger the protected species. In September 2013 the government issued a decree allowing the hunting of the species, considered as being alien. 

Hunting of Canis aureus in Estonia is still allowed in base of the recent decree during 1st Oct - 30th March period.

When hunting is performed on jackal territorial groups, after missing of the alfa pair, jackals could increase their number due to interaction between young adults of adiacent groups as in case of foxes (more about territoriality, here)

The hunting of the first two specimens of Canis aureus in Estonia occurred in February and August 2013 (here).

BALTICA 2013, Matsalu National Park Reserve, 1st winter jackal survey in Estonia (TV)

First International Jackal Symposium, Veliko Gradište SERBIA

On 13th-16th of October 2014 GOJAGE members will participate to the First International Jackal Symposium to be held in Veliko Gradište, Central Serbia. Please fill out the declaration of intent to participate here.

OLBIA 2013, BRIEF REPORT

Here

OLBIA 2013, Wildlife Survey in jackal ecological systems Ukraine

Jackal survey in wetlands of Ukraine, 18-24 September 2013 (here).

Main objectives:

1) Suitable insight on jackal distribution in wetlands of Northern Black Sea Coast near Dnieper River and in NW Ukraine, West Polesia. Olbia 2013 team proposed two fieldwork together with Ukrainian Environmental Authority and Zoologists with the aim to find possible new territorial reproductive groups in Ukraine using bioacoustic "Giannatos" monitoring technique.

2) Enforcing Wetland Mammal Specialists Network in Ukraine and improve GOJAGE membership with members of Ukrainian and Belarusian zoologists and Environmental Ecologists, specialists and experts of large carnivores and medium sized carnivores typical to wetlands and jackal specific ecological systems.

by O Banea & G Giannatos

Wildlife Survey in West Belarus

On mid September 2013 will take place wildlife survey in ecological systems in West Polesia, on wetlands near Pulemenske Lake West Belarus, to check if possible clusters of the golden jackal exists in those habitats. This survey pretends to demonstrate that the one jackal specimen removal of January 2012 is not a casual event and that those habitats are an intermediate station of jackal movements to Neman or Zapadnaya River Basins and Northern Baltic Sea Coast (e.g. Estonia), where in winter 2013 and this summer 2 jackal specimens were killed (see full report here).

La longue marche du chacal doré

As we published few months ago,
La Liberté pointed again:

Jackals in Switzerland
La longue marche du chacal doré (here) La LIBERTÉ PDF

 (Copyrighted Lapini & Banea 2013, modified after Arnold 2011)

Rhone River

We believe that soon or later the jackal will enter in France, on Rhone River catchment following the river until La Camargue, the home to more than 400 species of birds, including flamingo.

E-mail: gojage@goldenjackal.eu 

White-tailed Eagle in Jackal Ecological Network

Vanishing Vultures in Indian Peninsula, Jackal with.. relation to look in Europe

First Vulture Restaurant (wildlife observatory) was opened in Romania. In this scene appeared the golden jackal. One can understand, easily, the competition between both scavengers on local level. If we look to larger scale and if we try to see the scarcity of vulture populations, maybe we understand the increasing population trend of other competitors as jackal or feral (stray) dogs.

Munir Virani talks in Nairobi TED Talks on May 2012 (here) about species protection activities and the importance of the vulture's ecology. The Eolian Parks negative impact on bird's population is discussed, too.

After Network 2013, Crispus and Yoluka NGOs Summer Survey in RAMSAR Units SE Romania (see report here), we must include another species into the jackal ecological network, in this case with horizontally relations, the vulture.

White-tailed Eagle in Danube Delta (Source: Skua Nature and Ultima Frontiera Touristic Complex)

Haliaeetus albicilla IUCN Category and (2012) Digital Distribution Map

Ecology, Threats and Conservation of the White-tailed Eagle Haliaeetus albicilla 

BirdLife International (2013) Species factsheet: Haliaeetus albicilla. 

Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=3364 on 04/08/2013

Ecology

The species requires large and open expanses of lake, coast or river valley, within the boreal, temperate and tundra zones, nearby to undisturbed cliffs or open stands of large, old-growth trees for nesting. Its food is vertebrates (fish, mammals and especially birds), from marine, freshwater and terrestrial environments. It is mainly migratory in the north and east of its breeding range, but sedentary elsewhere.

Threats

Threats that affect this species include loss and degradation of wetlands, human disturbance and persecution, environmental pollution, collision with wind generators (Krone and Scharnweber 2003), and indiscriminate use of poisons. Modern forestry methods reduce the availability of suitable nesting habitat. Although some losses may be taking place in Asian Russia owing to increased logging and oil industry development, these are outweighed by increases in Europe.

Conservation actions under-way

CITES Appendix I and II. CMS Appendix I and II.

E-Mail to: controlecologic@gmail.com, gojage@goldenjackal.eu