Project name: “Monitoring Program development for species and habitat types of EU interest” within the Operational Programme “Competitiveness and Cohesion” (OPCC) project “Development of Monitoring Systems for Species and Habitat Types” Lot 6: Development of a monitoring program for large carnivores with capacity building of stakeholders in the monitoring and reporting system“
Client: Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development
Period: 12/2021 – 09/2023
Location: Croatia
The project carried out the “Development of a monitoring program for large carnivores with capacity building of stakeholders in the monitoring and reporting system – Lot 6”, which was divided into six work packages: Work package 1: Preparation and analysis of existing data on large carnivores (wolf and lynx) – Gap Analysis; Work package 2: Collection of additional data based on Gap Analysis; Work package 3: Proposal development for a National Program for monitoring the condition and evaluation of the conservation of populations of large carnivores – wolf and lynx; Work package 4: Testing of the proposal of the National Program for monitoring the condition and assessment of the conservation of populations of large carnivores – wolf and lynx; Work package 5: Creation of a National Program for monitoring the condition and assessment of the conservation of the population of large carnivores (wolf and lynx) and revision of reference values for large carnivores; Work package 6: Stakeholder education (monitoring and reporting system) for the implementation of the National Program for monitoring the condition and assessment of the conservation of large carnivore populations.
As part of Work Package 1, based on all published and available unpublished data, a Gap Analysis was made, i.e. an analysis that described the shortcomings between the existing collected data and knowledge for two species of large carnivores (wolf and lynx) in relation to the level of data required for the creation of a National Monitoring Program, to assess the state of the population as well as a population preservation assessment, as prescribed by the Reporting Guidelines 2013-2018. As part of Work Package 2, additional data were collected through field research in accordance with the results of WP 1 (Gap Analysis Report), which were used for the purposes of creating a National Monitoring Program and population conservation assessment, i.e. a revision of the conservation assessment. As part of Work Package 3, in order to set up an efficient and standardized system for monitoring the state of conservation for large carnivores, proposals were made for the National Program for monitoring the state of large carnivore populations and assessments of the conservation of large carnivore populations – for wolves and lynx, which contained a description of the monitoring methodology in the form of detailed instructions for field work, including the sampling plan and forms and an exact description of the system of methods of collection, recording, processing, storage as well as evaluation of data for individual species, description of assessment methods and methodology and evaluation. Professional activities as part of Work Package 4 included the development of a testing plan for the proposal of the National Program for monitoring the condition and assessment of the conservation of large carnivore populations – wolf and lynx, as well as testing the proposal of the National Program for monitoring the condition and assessment of the conservation of populations of large carnivores – wolf and lynx, together with the preparation of a Report on the monitoring program testing implementation. As part of Work Package 5, the final National Programs for monitoring the status and conservation assessment of large carnivore populations – wolves and lynx – were prepared in accordance with the test results and the testing report of the proposed monitoring program from Work Package 4, as well as the expert basis for assessing the parameters necessary for the large carnivores (wolf and lynx) conservation status assessment and revision of reference values for the National Program for monitoring the condition and conservation evaluation of the population of large carnivores – wolf and lynx. Professional activities within Work Package 6 included the creation of a Stakeholder Education Plan with an analysis of potential implementers of the monitoring and reporting system for large carnivores (PI employees and members of the NGO, hunting sector) for two monitoring programs (wolf and lynx) and the organization and maintenance of educational workshop on programs for implementing the National Monitoring Program and conservation assessment of the population of large carnivores.
The project was done in cooperation with the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Zagreb and Geonatura Ltd.
