Sound recorded by Fleur, LK forum
Estonian text posted 13.09.2019
Jackal or Golden jackal Šaakal or harilik šaakal Canis aureus
At about half a minute in the audio record a dog notices the activities of the jackals and announces this by yapping, but the flock members, the jackals in the family group, don’t take any notice of him. They proclaim instead that it is time to go out hunting. Reed areas with a rich flora such as we can see in the web camera are good habitats for the jackals.
These flock animals are not eminent predators. They are only slightly bigger than foxes and raccoon dogs which they of course drive off from their territories or even sometimes kill. In general jackals are omnivores that happily eat plant foods too and search for food waste near humans.
Sheep farmers are of course not pleased with the presence of the jackals, quite as ornithologists since they hurt breeding birds in the reeds. Of course it is not a harmless little animal, but unfortunately we as yet don’t know very much about its adaption in
In
Last year 24 jackal flocks were registered across
The matings of the jackals this year took place just before the end of winter. In May the litters were born but only to the dominating pair in the flock. There may have been two up to four young. The female suckered the offspring for seven weeks but all jackal group members cared for them and still do so, so that the young will become proper flock members, An explosive increase of the number of jackals in our nature does not seem realistic at the moment .