engleski

Monitoring of large mammals using camera traps on Mount Velebit

Mount Velebit is the largest mountain range in Croatia, around 145 kilometers in length and 30 km in width. Due to various landscapes, it offers different habitats for a large number of species. Using camera traps over an 8-month period from March to October 2018, we investigated the occurrence of large mammals on different types of microlocations (forest roads, animal forest paths, lynx marking sites, water sources and mineral licks) for two large data sets. In the area of northern Velebit, 21 camera trap during 2517 days recorded 2006 events, while 14 camera traps on southern Velebit recorded 1143 events in 2029 days. In total, we recorded 19 species of wild animals. The most frequent ones were: roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) 16, 4%, fox (Vulpes vulpes) 10, 7% and chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra) 9, 3%. Jackal (Canis aureus), fallow deer (Dama dama), hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus) and rock partridge (Alectoris graeca) were recorded only in the northern part of Velebit. We found a statistically significant difference (p <0.0001) for the number of events per camera trap daily for chamois in southern Velebit and for roe deer, fox (Vulpes vulpes), bear (Ursus arctos), hare (Lepus europeaus), marten (Martes sp.) and badger (Meles meles) in the northern part. Concerning microlocations, most common species on the roads were fox (15, 96%), roe deer (12, 35%) and red deer (Cervus elaphus) (6, 33%). Bear (29, 55%) and lynx (Lynx lynx) (6, 82%) were most frequent on marking sites, while roe deer was on water sources and animal forest paths (29, 08% and 18, 98%). Chamois was the most frequent species visiting salt licks (75, 94%). Our study suggests that for future research of the occurrence of large mammals, it is advisable to set the camera traps on different types of microlocations. Conversely, when a certain species is targeted, the specific type of microlocation must be chosen in correlation with the activity pattern of the researched species.

camera traps ; settings ; photos ; video ; large mammals

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