Scientists have confirmed five centers of wolves occurrence in the Czech-Saxon border region and reveal their ecology
Prague, October 16, 2018 - Two packs of wolves have recently settled in North Bohemian Borderlands over the past year. The other three packs are found in Saxony and have a significant impact on Bohemia. This is illustrated by the results of the first season of the three-year OWAD cross-border project. Experts from the Faculty of Environment of the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague and the Natural Science Museum in Görlitz confirmed the centers of the wolf occurrence in the National Park České Švýcarsko and the Ore Mountains. Three other breeding packs were found in Saxony around the Šluknov hook. The proof is 71 photos from camera traps and 31 results of genetic tests. Research also reveals the presence and composition of fauna in the wolves' territories. It turns out that the Ore Mountains host ten times higher numbers of deer than the national park. The project outputs are also provided by the cooperating Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic (NCA CR) and the local forest managers.
The first project monitoring included off-road field trips (1458 km) and intense surveys with dozens of camera traps (over 4000 days) in winter and spring. Scientists noted 59 confirmed wolf findings labeled as C1 in the SCALP monitoring method.
"The wolf is spreading very rapidly in the Central European landscape, as evidenced by the year-on-year shift in the settlement of the borderland by the emergence of two new territories. For three German packs we recorded six wolfs. We are engaged in co-operation with all those who are dealing with the occurrence of wolves and the forest managers from us receive an overview of the recorded species of animals. They have, for example, an overview of the fact that the most numerous mammal is a European red deer, followed by a roe deer. However, the ungulates distribution are significantly different among the studied localities,"said Aleš Vorel, Head of the CZU project.
Preliminary analysis of wolf faeces in North Bohemia shows that their diet is not very different from that of Saxon wolves. In absolute prevalence, roe deer and red deer are present in the faeces, and other common ungulates (wild boar, mouflon, fallow deer), hares are also present. The incidence of livestock was minimal in the samples, ranging between 1-2 percent.
The territory of the OWAD project occupies predominantly wooded parts of the border between the Czech Republic and Saxony from the Aš hook to the Ještěd massif. Researchers focus on sites with previously confirmed or expected occurrence of wolves and use a wide network of forestry officials, hunting associations, nature conservation authorities and enthusiastic volunteers.
The aim of the OWAD project, whos lead partner is the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague (CZU), is to strengthen cross-border cooperation between the Czech Republic and Saxony in the exchange of information and experience with the protection of wolves and the reduction of the conflict potential of wolves. The partners of the project are the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic (ME) and NCA CR, which has a key role to play in the work with the public. For the German side, the project partner is Senckenberg Science Society represented by the Museum of Natural Science in Görlitz.
About the project progress informs the web page https://owad.fzp.czu.cz. Www.navratvlku.cz, operated by NCA CR, is intended primarily for owners of livestock. It informs about the wolf's ecology and behavior and about how best to protect herds from damage caused by the wolf. The project "Objective Wolves Acceptance in human-altered cross boundary lanDscapes (OWAD)" was supported by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund under the Cross-Border Cooperation Program INTERREG Czech Republic - Free State Saxony 2014-2020.
The Press release is available for download here