Audio landscape with jackals

Submitted by Looduskalender EN on Wed, 18.09.2019 - 09:05
Autorid

Sound recorded by  Fleur, LK forum
Estonian text posted 13.09.2019 

 

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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 Estonia.

In Estonia the jackal is a prey for hunters. It is already spread over the whole of Estonia, even to the smaller islands and this year jackals were already present in Finland as well.

Last year 24 jackal flocks were registered across Estonia. Interesting what the number will increase to this winter?

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 .

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