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Monitoring of beaver (Castor fiber L.) population distribution in Croatia

Attempt to resettle beaver (Castor fiber L.) in many European countries has been successful. A project for the beavers return to Croatia started on the basis of the knowledge gathered from those actions. In the cooperation with Faculty of Forestry from the University of Zagreb and Wildbiologische Gesellschaft München, the project was carried out from 1996 to 1998. In that period of time, a total 85 beavers, from different areas in Bavaria, were transported to Croatia and were released at three different locations: Žutica in Posavina, Legrad in Podravina and Česma (downstream region of the river Sava). A phase of monitoring, commenced shortly after the first release. After transportation the number of beavers increased, and their migration to near or distant locations from the release point followed. During 1996, constant monitoring of two beavers showed that there were no migration because they remained in the release site. During 1997 after transportation of greater number of beavers, their spreading was beyond expectations with respect to distance. Records during 1998 had the highest number of new areas occupied by beavers, taking into consideration that during the first period of the year a transportation and releases were still taking place. The areas of a newly transported beavers, were recorded later on, together with the areas which were settled with beavers released a year ago. Because of the large area and only a few, difficult to spot, traces of beavers, details found which were insufficient to support a conclusion of the location. During 1999 new locations were recorded, most of them hiding the population of beavers which had lived there for a longer period of time, this supported and confirmed the locations of settled couples. Migrations of some couples, who abandoned first locations and setled at new ones, were spotted for the first time during 1999 and 2000. Together with the increased number of the locations inhabited by beavers tithe monitoring time increased as well as the numbers of the beavers monitored taking into consideration settlement to a new habitats and reproduction figures because of new adult individuals. According to the population analysis count and size of specific beaver couple estimate that during the winter period of year 1999 and 2000, the number of beavers in Croatia was between 100 and 130, while the total number, together with beavers which migrated to the neighboring countries, of Slovenia and Hungary, the number of beavers could reach 150.

Beaver (Castor fiber L.) ; completion ; Croatia ; Posavina ; Podravina ; wide-spread of beaver

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