Vizzarri, F.; Slamecka, J.; Sladecek, T.; Jurcik, R.; Ondruska, L.; Schultz, P. Long-Term Monitoring of European Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus) Population in the Slovak Danubian Lowland. Diversity2024, 16, 486.
Vizzarri, F.; Slamecka, J.; Sladecek, T.; Jurcik, R.; Ondruska, L.; Schultz, P. Long-Term Monitoring of European Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus) Population in the Slovak Danubian Lowland. Diversity 2024, 16, 486.
Vizzarri, F.; Slamecka, J.; Sladecek, T.; Jurcik, R.; Ondruska, L.; Schultz, P. Long-Term Monitoring of European Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus) Population in the Slovak Danubian Lowland. Diversity2024, 16, 486.
Vizzarri, F.; Slamecka, J.; Sladecek, T.; Jurcik, R.; Ondruska, L.; Schultz, P. Long-Term Monitoring of European Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus) Population in the Slovak Danubian Lowland. Diversity 2024, 16, 486.
Abstract
In many European countries over the last decades, arable fields dominate agriculture landscapes, leading to a very intensive land-use practices. This reason seems to be the main cause of popula-tions declines for numerous farmland species, including the European hare (Lepus europaeus Pallas, 1778). The Research institute for Animal Production (National Agricultural and Food Centre, Luzianky, Slovakia) has been engaged in a long monitoring project (project currently run-ning), collecting certain indicators of hare population dynamics during hunting season since 1987 to 2023 in the Slovak Danubian Lowland. In the same macro-area (Čiližská Radvaň and Lehnice) a study was conducted on the influence of permanent semi-natural vegetation in relation to re-cruitment, population density and production. The whole monitored period was aggregated into 5-years intervals (for a total of 7 time-intervals), with the aim of analyzing the brown hare popu-lation dynamics. Spring hare density in the Danubian Lowland is currently 20.8 hares/km2, with harvests of 4.6 hares/km2. During all the monitoring period, bag’s animals have been examined following the regular hunting operations for the purpose of age determination (weight of eye lenses), sex ratio and productivity. The results of our analysis showed that the proportion of juve-nile in bag (PYB) among those shot varied from 37.0 % of the last 5-years interval (2018-2023), to a maximum of 51.0 % in interval of years 1998-2002. On total average there were 1.86 juveniles per adult female (r). The proportion of adult females in gamebag varied from 22.58 % (years in-terval 1992-1997) to 31.26 % (years interval 2018-2023). Sex-ratio (SI; males : females) among shot hares showed a value of 0.50, ranged from 0.48 in the period 2008-2012 to 0.52 in the first observed period (years 1987-1991) and in the last one (years 2018-2023). Average weight of shot hares was 4.04 kg (juveniles 3.83 kg, adults 4.27 kg, adult males 4.21 kg and females 4.32 kg). There was a large positive effect of set-aside with special mixtures, created for hares in large-scale farmed agrarian landscape, on hare density, bag and recruitment. In model hunting grounds with such set-asides increased the spring stock by 25 %, bag by 100 % and recruitment by 20 %. This study reveals that the management of European brown hare is not sustainable, and the population is decreasing. It is proved through the decline of harvest hares and by population dynamics parameters. Environmental improvements lead to the stabilization and increasing of requested parameters.
Keywords
biodiversity; conservation; game management; population dynamics
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Animal Science, Veterinary Science and Zoology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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