IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Bluzma, P.; Baleisis, R. | |
| Monitoring of the large carnivores in Lithuania: Experience and first results | |
| 2001 Conference Proceeding | |
Two species of large carnivore mammals - wolf (Canis lupus) and lynx (Lynx lynx) constantly inhabit Lithuania and reproduce. Brown bear (Ursus arctos) became extinct in the 19th century. Currently only single animals wandering accidentally from Bielorussia and Latvia to our country. The abundance and distribution of wolves and lynxes has changed very much during the last centuries. At the end of the 19th century, these animals were near extinction and inhabited only remote and inaccessible places (Lietuvos fauna, 1988). During World War I and especially World War II, wolf numbers increased again: in 1948 according to the survey of game animals there were about 1.7 thousand wolves. They created much damage to domestic animals and the not numerous at that time ungulate animals. Therefore, intensive wolf hunting and extermination by various means was organised. In a short time, the number of these animals decreased to 30-60 individuals in the second part of seventies. Later, when defending wolves as the "order of nature" begin, their number started to increase and reached 500-600 in the last ten years. In the first half of the 20th century lynxes become very rare. But in the second half of the century their number increased to approximately 200 in the eighties and nineties. In the last ten years, the number of lynxes decreased again by half. Their hunting has been forbidden since 1978 and the species is included into Red data book of Lithuania in 2000 (Bluzma, 1999; 2000). |
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