The quality of wolf population in Lithuania according to hunting in 2005-2013

Abstract

Wolf hunting is limited in Lithuania from 2005. However selective hunting is not carried out. Due to this harvested wolves are random representatives of population. Age ratio of hunted wolves was: 26.8% immature wolves, 73.2% mature; sex ratio was: 66.5% males and 33.5% females. The ratio between harvested males and females was 1.98:1. The large part of wolf population in Lithuania consisted of healthy wolves (78.9%), but diseases of skin were noticed in 30.6% of municipalities where wolves were hunted. Comparing eight hunting seasons the diseases of skin were most broadly spread in country in the last hunting season (2012-2013). During eight hunting seasons wolves were hunted in 36 districts, which are 72.0% of all districts in Lithuania. It has been determined that the greatest numbers of the wolves (79.5%) were harvested incidentally, i.e. during the hunting of other game animals. Usually wolves were hunted by driving hunting (56.8%), blind hunting (33.2%) and flagging (7.9%). Besides there were recorded five cases of wolves found in snares. Seven cases were also recorded where harvested wolves were carrying snares on their bodies. The aim of this work is to evaluate the quality and distribution of the wolf’s population in Lithuania according to wolves hunting in 2005- 2013 period.