DIGITALNA ARHIVA ŠUMARSKOG LISTA
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| ŠUMARSKI LIST 9-10/2022 str. 77 <-- 77 --> PDF |
The longest movement of a 4-year-old female (held for 15 weeks) was 24 km, when she came very close to the town of Užice together with two other individuals. She stayed there from August 15 to November 9, 2019 (after that, GPS collar failed), which was a dispersal event contrary to all our predictions. The cause of this movement may be wolf harassment, as a few days after the opening of the fence near the acclimatization enclosure (≈ 2.5 km), one female from a pack of three wolves was culled by the guard service. There may also be a need for water and better food resources during the stay in the enclosure, because this new habitat near Užice is located at an altitude of 600 to 900 m a.s.l., along the Đetinja River and various agricultural crops in a deciduous forest setting. Red deer uses space depending on the impacts of various factors, such as abiotic (topography and climate) and anthropogenic (forest characteristics, supplementary feeding, roads and hiking trails), but also historical events and management in the past (Stergar and Jerina, 2017). Reaserch in Slovakia (Kropil et al., 2015) showed two distinct spatial patterns in the same local population (residential and migratory), and residential annual home ranges were significantly smaller compared to migratory ones, but residents expanded their space use in winter compared to other seasons. In their research, the longest movements were determined in three young stags emigrating to neighbouring mountain ranges (30, 47 and 65 km), and they concluded that the smallest area for unified management should be at least 300 km2. Elk (Cervus elaphus) dispersion from the release site depends on the impacts of many factors such as the length of time they were held prior to release, large predators, prevailing winds, geographical features of the area, age of released individuals, road density, hydro-electric corridors and human disturbance (Rosatte et al., 2007; Ryckman et al., 2010; Yott et al., 2011). We believe that the released red deer in the Tara area dispersed further in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, when many families from Belgrade and other large cities came to this mountain during a period of strict lockdown (to their own or rented cottages), which was the cause of frequent human disturbance. Some authors suggest that areas dominated by a single cover type with little interspersion of other habitats should be avoided for elk reintroduction (Larkin et al., 2004). These authors recommended areas with high levels of open-forest edge (≈ 5 km/km2), which will likely enhance release-site fidelity and promote reintroduction success. Wolf and brown bear predation, especially poaching and illegal shooting could be an important factor affecting red deer recruitment and reintroduction success, similar to the situation in some other countries (Rosatte et al., 2007; Yott et al., 2011), while further study in the area of Mt. Tara is required. Our results obtained in the period 2019-2021 provided only a partial insight into the directions and distances of movement after the release of red deer, which are probably much larger than shown by the collected records and GPS points (Fig. 4). For example, unverified data indicate that one group of released red deer crossed the state border between Serbia and B&H, and that it is located near the town of Višegrad. The proposed reintroduction program for red deer in the Tara area contains the necessary elements and measures (Gačić et al., 2018), but many of them were modified during implementation, while some were not implemented. The main goal of this reintroduction was to form a self-sustaining and vital population of red deer in the selected favourable area (150 km2) within a 20-year period. The population should reach an estimated capacity of 120 individuals, and serve for new settlements and sustainable use through hunting tourism. Some authors (Yott et al., 2011) argue that the degree of movement and dispersal of animals from a temporary acclimatization enclosure (soft release), or from a release site (hard release) has the highest impact on the success of reintroduction. In addition, the key goal of reintroduction should be to increase the size of the population as soon as possible (Ryckman et al., 2010). Our analysis showed that the established acclimatisation enclosure (3.63 ha) had a significantly smaller area than planned (7.29 ha), so that very favourable parts of the forest and three natural streams were left out. Moreover, the disinfection barrier at the main gate was not built, while the fence around the acclimatization enclosure was much weaker than designed, e.g. there was no electric fence on the outside for protection against large predators (wolves and brown bears), and no barbed wire above the upper part of the wire mesh with flags in the middle of the space between the poles, etc. CONCLUSIONS ZAKLJUČCI The modern approach and methodologies used in this project (“SRBREDDEER”) were appropriate and can be applied in other projects trying to reintroduce red deer to areas that were once part of its natural range, both in central Serbia and neighboring countries (B&H, Montenegro and North Macedonia). In the period 2019-2021, 74 red deers were released from the acclimatization enclosure in the Tara area, which is about 60% of the estimated capacity of the selected favourable area (150 km2). Total mortality among the 72 red deer that were transported to the acclimatisation enclosure was 8.3%. During the study period, no bark stripping was observed outside the acclimatization enclosure, nor were any deaths of the released red deer registered. A large |