Implementation of selected measures of the Action Plan of the European ground squirrel in the Southern Moravia region

Description

Czech nature is rich and diverse but also contains many vulnerable species. These species need an active protection. A document called an action plan contains guidelines for nature conservation authorities, researches and owners of land how to maintain endangered species populations. It is a special tool which provides complex knowledge about species and recommends the measures how to support the species. The project is about implementation of the measures. The European Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus citellus) is specially protected species therefor the “Action Plan for European Ground Squirrel” was prepared in the year 2007. The project meets the target of the state environmental policy of the Czech Republic for 2012-2020. The main objective of the project is the implementation of the action plan by monitoring, research studies and education in the southern Moravia region. The project outcomes are the increasing knowledge of species population in study area and two research studies – demography collecting telemetric data and population viability analysis. The project outputs are data from monitoring of species and results of two studies. Project will also include part of publicity and beyond leaflets and stamp for winemakers who will manage to meet needs of the species. The target group of the project is primarily a species and nature-conservation authorities. Secondarily, the protection and connected activities will carry out the influence oover the general public via education. There is a local partner Karlovy Vary Museum. Partner contributs to the project by its expertness and experiences.

Summary of project results

European ground squirrel (EGS) was common inhabitant of the lowland grasslands of the Czech Republic. However, strong decrease of the population occurred in second half of the last century with the result of only 28 mutually isolated sites of occurrence recorded in 2005. As most of these populations are small and isolated, the probability of species extinction is high. Therefore, in 2008 Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic approved the Action Plan for the species. The aim of the project is to implement four important measures listed in the Action Plan in the region of Southern Moravia: 1. Detailed distribution survey in vineyard areas, 2. Demographic study of selected population of EGS, 3. Population viability analysis of the species in the Czech Republic, 4. Actions to raise public awareness. The region of the Southern Moravia was selected from two main reasons: a) only little attention was up to now paid to the situation of the European ground squirrel in this area and few measures of the Action Plan were actually implemented here, including regular monitoring of the species, which is focused namely on already known sites (e.g. airports) instead of searching for new ones. Therefore, the survey of the areas that could potentially host EGS populations are part of this project. , b) the climatic and landscape factors and rather agricultural human use together with close distance to the populations in other European countries with EGS (Slovak Republic, Austria) allows metapopulation structure of the distribution of the species with well established colonies interconnected by patches of small/temporal colonies. Such a structure seems to be the critical for long term survival of the species in the Czech Republic and up to now only little is known about it. Outputs of the project 1) Trademark Souslik friendly vineyard Trademark "Souslik friendly vineyard" was developed and is registered at the Industrial Property Office. Wine growers, who grass their vineyards and have sousliks there, have permission to use the trademark on the wine botlles produced from these vineyards. Currently 15 wine growers has rights to use it. 2) Web page www.syslinavinici.cz New web page for trademark Souslik friendly vineyard was created.

Summary of bilateral results