Abstract
The golden jackal is a mesocarnivore with a rapidly expanding European range, where current resident breeding populations occupy much of the Balkans, Pannonian Basin and the Black and Caspian seas coasts. Despite numerous post-2000 records, breeding of this species in the newly colonized regions of Central and Northwestern Europe remained unconfirmed. Photography- and direct observation-based evidence obtained in 2017 from Central Bohemia, Czech Republic, indicates a north-western shift in the breeding range over 300 km from the closest known breeding jackal population in Pannonian Basin.
Acknowledgements
We thank Miroslav Kutal (Friends of the Earth Czech Republic – Olomouc), for advice on photo traps, Karel Bendl, Kristina Bendlová and Radek Lacina (Forests Administration of Benátky nad Jizerou) for help in the field, Vojtěch Lukáš for sharing photographs of jackal pups, and Ashlie Hartigan (Natural History Museum London) for correction of English. Our thanks are also due to the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic for support and provision of land for the large herbivore grazing reserve. The survey has been financially supported by the Czech Academy of Sciences “Strategy AV21 – program Diversity of Life and Health of Ecosystems” and by the programme of Regional Cooperation between the Regions and the Institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences in 2017, project “Monitoring of megaherbivore impact on selected groups of organisms in SCI Milovice-Mladá” (R200961701), Funder ID: 10.13039/501100004240. MJ and MŠ were supported by the Czech Academy of Sciences, RVO 60077344 and RVO 68081766, respectively.
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