IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Rigg, R. | |
| White wilderness winter wolf and lynx tracking in the Tatra mountains of Slovakia | |
| 2011 Full Book | |
Many hunters consider wolves and other carnivores such as lynx as competitors, because they prey on valuable game animals such as red deer and wild boar. As a result hunters tend to overestimate carnivore numbers and cull them intensively. While official game statistics list more than 1,500 wolves in Slovakia, others claim that the annual winter hunting season leaves fewer than 150 individuals. Are wolves being hunted to extinction, as the environmentalists say, or too numerous, as hunters claim? The dispute shows the clear need for reliable, objective methods to estimate numbers of predators. The work of this project aimed to answer that need by designing and testing a methodology for indexing wolf and lynx abundance. In doing so it brought together international volunteers and local people, nature conservationists, foresters, landowners and hunters. This report deals with the 2010 field season, which was conducted in collaboration between Biosphere Expeditions and the Slovak Wildlife Society. Fieldwork was conducted in the Liptov region of northern Slovakia with Biosphere Expeditions bringing in an international team of volunteers to help with field work from 30 January to 19 February 2010. After appropriate training, volunteers surveyed 54 transects with a total length of 447 km and identified 102 wolf tracks and 11 lynx tracks. Wolf tracks were found on 44% of the surveyed transects at a track density of 13.6 / 100 km / day, with one wolf track found on average every 7.3 km. Lynx tracks were found on 19% of the surveyed transects at a track density of 1.3 / 100 km / day and a frequency of 77.7 km. All lynx tracks appeared to be of a single individual, whereas between one and four wolves (mean: 1.7, n=61) were tracked. Differences in track abundance were found across the study area, although both percentage of transects with tracks and track density were higher for wolves than for lynx in all three survey sectors. Sign of lynx tended to be found where signs of wolves were also detected. A total of 72 samples suitable for genetic analysis were collected, 17 (24%) of these are thought to be from lynx and 55 (76%) from wolves. Most samples (75%) were of urine and all are awaiting DNA analysis. The project achieved its main aim of designing and testing a methodology for indexing wolf and lynx abundance. The Slovak Wildlife Society now intends to continue this work for at least four more years, expanding the use of the methodology to a larger area. |
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