BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jos Stratford" data-source="post: 3369711" data-attributes="member: 12449">Neusieldelser See is on the border with Hungary, part of the historical range. A review of the history of jackal spread in Europe, part of my text on my website:Three main stages:i. Period of dramatic decline (prior early 1960s): destruction of habitat and widespread persecution with poison baits led to the extinction of Golden Jackal in Hungary and Macedonia and significant reductions and local extinctions in core Balkan populations (Spassov 1989). By the 1960s, populations were fragmented into pockets, mostly in Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey (Spassov 1993, Giannatos 2004).ii. Period of recovery (1960s-1970s): following legal protection in 1962, populations of Golden Jackals began to recover with the species re-colonising territories in Bulgaria, thereafter establishing populations in Romania and Serbia (Spassov 1989, Kryštufek et al 1997).iii. Period of expansion into Central and Eastern Europe (1980s to the current day): from the 1980s onwards, the distributional range of Golden Jackals has expanded significantly across Central and Eastern Europe. From initial recolonisation of Hungary in the early 1980s, Golden Jackals have subsequently established viable populations in that country (Szabó et al 2009), with the population recently doubling to an estimated 1510 individuals between 2004 and 2007 (Tóth et al 2009). Concurrent with this, the species has also expanded considerably to the north and west with cases of breeding confirmed at localities far from the core Balkan region, including southern Ukraine, Slovenia, Austria and Italy (Arnold et al 2012). Golden Jackals have also been confirmed in Germany (Möckel 2000), the Czech Republic (Koubek & Červenŷ 2007), Slovakia (Arnold et al 2012), Switzerland (Kora Carnivore Ecology and Wildlife Management 2012) northern Ukraine (GOJAGE 2013) and, of relevance to the recent reports in the Baltic States, an individual near Tomašoŭkain in western Belarus (Dzedzich NGO 2012). This record from Belarus was at a distance of 265 kilometres from the Lithuanian border.By the end of 2012, not including the Baltic States, Golden Jackal had been recorded in 20 European countries, with confirmed breeding in 11 of these (Arnold et al 2012, Dzedzich NGO 2012, KORA 2012). In May 2015, photographs of a Golden Jackal in Biebrza National Park (north-east Poland) were released on social media (Wilk NGO, Facebook 2015). This is the first individual reported in Poland.[since writing this a year ago, additional records now exist more widely - not all confirmed - in Poland, as well as Germany, Netherlands, Denmark and Finland]</blockquote>

Verification