Letter of complaint about the situation of the golden jackal species in Lithuania 2nd of June 2015, GOJAGE e-Bulletin By Ovidiu C. Banea, Wieslaw Bogdanowicz, Luca Lapini, Giorgos Giannatos and Nikolai Spassov

Golden Jackal Informal Study Group in Europe (GOJAGE) and Jackal Ecology Task Force (JETF) in Central and SE Europe do not consider the golden jackal an invasive alien species IAS in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus and NE Ukraine

In the recent past we recieved two news regarding reports of the golden jackal in Northern Europe 1) Lithuania: Dead jackal. The golden jackal was shot in Šakių district, near Lekėčiai, on 7th of February 2015; some samples were collected for investigation in the Kaunas Tadas Ivanauskas Museum of Zoology. Museum confirmed that the shot animal was golden jackal. Source: Gintarė Žalkauskaitė, On behalf of NGO “Baltijos vilkas”. 2) Poland: Alived jackal. On 21st of May 2015, on facebook profile "Biebrznięci" have sprung up photos, probably of golden jackal. People ask what it is; it seems to me that this is the golden jackal. This animal was photographed near the village Gugny on "Tsar Road" (Carska Droga), near Biebrza National Park: 53° 21' 0" North, 22° 36' 0" East. Sources: Maciej Romanski, Wieslaw Bogdanovicz, Wojciech Solarz. A GOJAGE team explored NW Ukraine and NE Poland during Baltica 2015, first stage (Full report here). Lithuanian Environmental Board prepares now including the species on the list of IAS. The situation in Lithuania is that Ministry of Environment prepared changes in the list of invasive species in Lithuania and included golden jackal into the list - the commission of invasive species decided to do this. Now there is the last stage - the alignment with the society till the 6th of June 2015. Jackal Ecology Task Force (JETF) is a group of experts in Central and SE Europe formed at the Crispus NGO Sibiu Romania initiative within GOJAGE. This group of golden jackal population ecology experts aims of gathering support for their own research programs regarding golden jackal species ecology. (See members and signature at the end of this document). This group is active since June 2012. An Invasive Alien Species IAS needs at least three conditions to be included on the list of IAS A) To be non-native, allochtonous, introduced by people. This condition in case of golden jackal species is now controversed by many researchers even through genetics, assessing that the golden jackal population clusters in Baltics could be linked to the known natural range of the main population specially to Caucasus analyzed specimens. Golden jackal could emerged from known natural range as northern Black Sea Coast or Caucaus using Dnieper and Daugava River Catchments without eny relief barriers with stepping in Polesya. (In SW Belarus a jackal was shot at the beginning of 2012). B) To manace biological diversity on local scale. No country of known natural range reported biological diversity loss until today. C) To have an exponential growth. This occured in some of known natural range countries but is still expresion of other natural colonization pattern with numbers below other congeneric species as foxes. Example: In Romania were shot 2502 jackals in 28 counties during 2012-2013 hunting season versus 17358 red foxes in the same counties. The species howling behaviour could produce species recognizing in villages and this, an overestimating of their numbers. 1|Page

Legal status of the Golden Jackal species in Europe From Papp et al 2013 ACTA MUSEI MARAMOROSIENSIS IX, Sighetu Marmației, Ianuarie 2014 (Editia 2013) Applied ecology and management aspects related to the golden jackal specific ecological system in Romania

In 1996 Canis aureus L. 1758 was included in – Lower Risk/Least Concern category (Baillie & Groombridge, 1996 in Jhala & Moehlman 2008). In 2004 it has been included in the Least Concern category of the IUCN Red List of species (Criteria Version 3.1: IUCN, 2001). The CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of the Wild Fauna and Flora, signed in Washington D.C. on 3rd of March 1973) lists the golden jackal in Appendix III. This Appendix contains species that are protected in at least one country, which has asked other CITES Parties for assistance in controlling the trade. The EC Habitats Directive (92/43 of 21.05.1992) lists the golden jackal in Annex V. This Annex includes animal and plant species of community interest whose taking in the wild and exploitation may be subject to management measures. European Environment Ministers adopted the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats (Bern Convention) in 1979. Appendix III of Bern Convention, which includes species that are in need of protection but may be hunted or otherwise exploited in exceptional instances, does not include jackal as protected species. Jackal is mentioned in Annex V of EC Habitats Directive 92/43, as above mentioned derived from the Bern Convention framework. There is a clear necessity to better address and apply the legal framework on the conservation of golden jackal in European countries, taking into account that in many new-colonized areas data are completely missing and the ecology of the species is often confounded with that of the grey wolf. In Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria the jackal harvest is becoming exponential, but we do not know if this is due to the continuous population development or to a bad management. Unsustainable hunting without comprehensive and reliable monitoring data about the species should be avoided, as requested for the species listed in Annex V of EC Habitats Directive 92/43. When the European jackal is considered a game species, anyway, special measures should be taken, like the prohibition of aircrafts utilisation and of any other motorised vehicles during the hunting sessions (Annex VI of EC Habitats Directive 92/43) and the prohibition of various popular bad hunting practices. The European Mammal Assessment (EMA) is the first review of the conservation statusof all wild mammals in Europe according to IUCN regional Red Listing guidelines (Temple & Terry, 2007). The European Mammal Assessment and consequently this report were requirements of the framework of a service contract with the European Commission (Service Contract No. 070502/2005/414893/MAR/B2). The Red List assessments were made at two regional levels for terrestrial species: for geographical Europe, and for the 25 Member States of the European Union when the EMA was initiated in 2005. During the European Mammal Assessment, the experts assigned to the golden jackal the category Near Threatened (Appendix 1) in Red List status of European mammals of their report for EU 25 level category. A taxon is Near Threatened when it has been evaluated against the criteria but does not qualify for Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable now, but is close to qualifying for or is likely to qualify for a threatened category in the near future (IUCN, 2011).

Tacking into account the mentioned reasons we advised to not declare jackals as IAS in Lithuania

On behalf of JETF and GOJAGE, 2nd of June 2015 In the next 2 pages: facsimil of JETF in 2012

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In June 2012, Ovidiu C Banea, Krassimir Kurtev, Dumitru Murariu, Viorica Bâscă, Grigore Băboianu, Angela Bănăduc, Nikolai Spassov, Giorgos Giannatos, Miha Krofel, Duško Ćirović, Ivana Selanec, László Szabó, Miklós Heltai and József Lanszki signed Jackal Ecology Task Force JETF constitution (Doc 1/14.06.2012, NGO Crispus Sibiu)

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