Golden jackal (Canis aureus) in the Czech Republic: the first record of a live animal and its long-term persistence in the colonized habitat

By

Pyšková, Klára
Storch, David
Horáček, Ivan
Kauzál, Ondřej
Pyšek, Petr

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2016

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

641

Pages

151-163

Subjects

Golden jackal , Habitat , Persistence , range expansion

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.641.10946

 

Abstract

A golden jackal (Canis aureus) individual was recorded ~40 km east of Prague in the Czech Republic. It is the first record of a living golden jackal in the country; up to now several individuals have been recorded but all of them were either shot dead or killed by a vehicle. The observed animal was documented by camera traps set up for research of carnivore diversity in different habitats in the study area. It was first photographed on 19 June 2015, and in total there were 57 records made by 12 traps until 24 March 2016 when the animal was still present in the area. Forty-nine of the 57 records were made in a shrubby grassland over an area of ~100 ha, 39% of sightings were during the day and 61% in the night. There were two distinct peaks in the circadian activity of the animal, from 4 to 10 a.m., and from 6 p.m. to midnight. We also review the verified records of the golden jackal in the Czech Republic, some of which were only published in local hunting magazines. However, the observation reported in this paper represents the first evidence of a long-term occurrence in Europe of the same golden jackal individual, that persisted for at least nine months and over winter, northwest of Hungarian-Austrian border where the population has been known to reproduce.