European jackal
The European jackal is a subspecies of the golden jackal present in Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Southeast Europe. It was first described by French naturalist Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire during the Morea expedition. There were an estimated 70,000 jackals in Europe according to one source; another source gives an estimate of 97,000 to 117,000 individuals. Though mostly found in South-Southeastern Europe, its range has grown to encompass parts of the Baltic in Northeastern Europe, in Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, mostly in Italy, with further sightings in Western Europe ; several other countries in mainland Europe have reported the jackals as vagrants. One theory, which has been set forth to explain the rapid spread of the species since the 1970s to colonise European areas in which they were perhaps likely never historically native, is that grey wolf populations are less abundant than in the historic past.
Physical description
The European subspecies, consistent with Bergmann's rule, is the largest of the golden jackals, with animals of both sexes measuring 120–125 cm in total length and 10–13 kg in body weight. One adult male in North-Eastern Italy is recorded to have reached 14.9 kg. The fur is coarse, and is generally brightly coloured with blackish tones on the back. The thighs, upper legs, ears and forehead are bright reddish chestnut. Jackals in Northern Dalmatia have broader than average skulls, which is thought to result from human induced isolation from other populations, thus resulting in a new morphotype.Diet
In the Caucasus, jackals mainly hunt hares, small rodents, pheasants, partridges, ducks, coots, moorhens and passerines. They readily eat lizards, snakes, frogs, fish, molluscs and insects. During the winter period, they will kill many nutrias and waterfowl. During such times, jackals will surplus kill and cache what they do not eat. Jackals will feed on fruits, such as pears, hawthorn, dogwood and the cones of common medlars. Golden jackals tend not to be as damaging to livestock as wolves and red foxes are, though they can become a serious nuisance to small sized stock when in high numbers. The highest number of livestock damages occurred in southern Bulgaria: 1,053 attacks on small stock, mainly sheep and lambs, were recorded between 1982 and 1987, along with some damages to newborn deer in game farms.In Greece, rodents, insects, carrion, and fruits comprise the jackal's diet. However, they rarely eat garbage, due to large numbers of stray dogs preventing them access to places with high human density. Jackals in Turkey have been known to eat the eggs of the endangered green sea-turtle. In Hungary, their most frequent prey are common voles and bank voles. In Dalmatia, mammals made up 50.3% of the golden jackal's diet, fruit seeds and vegetables 34.1%, insects 29.5%, birds and their eggs 24.8%, artificial food 24%, and branches, leaves, and grass 24%. Information on the diet of jackals in northeastern Italy is scant, but it is certain that they prey on small roe deer and hares.
Distribution
The jackal's current European range mostly encompasses the Balkan region, where the population had been reduced in many areas by the 1960s, with core populations occurring in scattered regions such as Strandja, the Dalmatian Coast, while it was still very numerous and widespread at the lowlands of mainland Greece and some Greek Islands, in the beginning of the decade. It recolonised its former territories in Bulgaria during 1962, following legislative protection. Subsequently, from the 1980s onward, expanded its range westward into Serbia, Slovenia, Austria and Italy, and as far North as Northwestern Romania, Hungary and Slovakia.The golden jackal is listed as an Annex V species in the EU Habitats Directive and as such may be hunted or killed in Estonia, Greece and all other EU member states, should these states allow this based on their own laws, but the population must be monitored and submitted to the European Commission every six years.
In Turkey, Romania, the North Black Sea coast, and the Caucasus region, the status of jackals was largely unknown in 2004. There were indications of expanding populations in Romania and the north-western Black Sea coast, and reports of decline in Turkey.
Balkans and further East
Jackal populations in Albania however are on the verge of extinction with possible occurrence in only three lowland wetland locations along the Adriatic Sea.In Bosnia and Herzegovina, jackals were a rare species. From 1920 to 1999, only a few observations in the south of the country. However, at the beginning of this century, their significant presence in the north of the country is an obvious example of expansion of the jackals on the European continent.
Bulgaria has the largest jackal population in Europe, which went through a 33–fold increase in range from the early-1960s to mid-1980s. Factors aiding this increase include the replacement of natural forests with dense scrub, an increase in animal carcasses from state game farms, reductions in wolf populations and the abandonment of poisoning campaigns. In the early 1990s, it was estimated that up to 5,000 jackals populated Bulgaria. The population increased in 1994, and appears to have stabilised.
In Croatia, a 2007 survey reported 19 jackal packs in the north-western part of Ravni Kotari and two on Vir Island.
In Greece, the golden jackal was at least locally, one of the most common wild mammals, as reported by various sources, during the 18th and the 19th centuries, and the 20th century, till the 1960s. Then, the same period when the recovery began in the nearby Bulgaria, the Greek population collapsed due to intense poison bait campaigns; as of 2000, golden jackals were the rarest of the three wild extant canids there, having disappeared from some islands like Corfu, Lefkada and Euboea and large parts of central Greece, western Greece and, being limited to disjunct, isolated population clusters in Peloponnese, Phocis, Samos Island, Halkidiki and north-eastern Greece. Since around 2010, the species recovered and reappeared over much of its original distribution, even to places where it was not known before. Although listed as 'vulnerable' in the Red Data Book for Greek Vertebrates, the species has neither been officially declared as a game species nor as a protected one.
Jackal populations have been increasing in Serbia since the late 1970s, and occur mainly in north-eastern Serbia and lower Srem. Jackals are especially common near Negotin and Bela Palanka, where, during the 1990s, about 500 specimens were shot.
Central Europe
Golden jackals are listed as a protected species in Slovenia, where they were first spotted in 1952 and have also established permanent territories there. In 2005, a probably vagrant female was accidentally shot near Gornji Grad in the Upper Savinja Valley, Northern Slovenia. In 2009, two territorial groups of golden jackal were recorded in the Ljubljana Marsh area, Central Slovenia. It seems that the species continues to expand towards Central Europe.There have been records of a presence of golden jackals around Geneva in Switzerland since 2011; a camera trap photographed one in 2018. In 2019 the authorities of the Republic and Canton of Geneva revealed the first video footage of one in Switzerland.
In Hungary, golden jackals had disappeared in the 1950s through hunting and habitat destruction, only to return in the late 1970s. The first breeding pairs being detected near the southern border in Transdanubia, then between the River Danube and Tisza. Golden jackals have since increased greatly in number year by year, with some estimates indicating that they now outnumber red foxes. The sighting of a jackal near the Austrian border in the summer of 2007 indicated that they have spread throughout the country.
There have been repeated sightings of jackals in eastern Austria for a few decades. In 2007, the first reproduction was reported in the national park Neusiedler See – Seewinkel. It has since been seen in the western and southern parts of the country, in South Tyrol, Upper Austria, Carinthia and Styria. In 2019, it was spotted for the first time in eastern Tyrol.
The presence of the animals in Germany has been confirmed since the very end of the 1990s. As of 2019, they have been sighted almost throughout the country. They are not thought to have been historically present in Germany before, according to experts warm winter weather may be contributing to their expansion into new territory. They have primarily been observed in nature parks. Despite the long presence in the country, jackals are not known to have formed territories, a pack or let alone breed in Germany. The closest known packs are in the Czech Republic and Austria, and it is quite possible vagrant animals are wandering hundreds of kilometres.
A dead adult was found close to the road near Podolí in the Czech Republic, on 19 March 2006.
The species' presence in Poland was confirmed in 2015 through a necropsy on a roadkilled male found in the northwest and camera trapping of two live specimens in the east.
Southern Europe
In Italy, the species is found in the wild in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto, and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. In the High Adriatic Hinterland, its distribution has been recently updated by Lapini et al.. In 1984 Canis aureus had reached the Province of Belluno; in 1985, a pack reproduced near Udine ; a road-killed jackal was collected in Veneto in 1992, and their presence was then confirmed in the Province of Gorizia, and in the hinterland of the Gulf of Trieste. In these cases, the specimens were usually roaming male subadults, though a family-group was discovered in Agordino in 1994. A young dead female was discovered on 10 December 2009 in Carnia, indicating that the species' range has continued to expand. Moreover, in the late summer of 2009, the species was also signalled in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, where it has likely reached the Puster Valley. The golden jackal populations in Italy are concentrated in the northeastern portion of the country, but animals have been spotted sporadically south of the River Po. A single specimen was filmed in the Province of Modena in 2017, but no local reproduction was identified. Another specimen was spotted in 2020 near Parma. In January 2021, a survey recorded the presence of the first known breeding group south of the Po. The Italian branch of WWF estimates that jackal numbers in Italy may be underestimated. The golden jackal is a protected animal in Italy.A golden jackal was photographed in 2024 in Zaragoza, near the Ebro river. A roadkill animal has been found in Alava in 2023.