Coyote-like golden jackal is laying claim to Europe. Why now?

There’s no shortage of wildlife roaming the hills and forests of Tuscany, in the heart of Italy. But Italian conservationists were taken by surprise in December when a new creature turned up unexpectedly: a golden jackal.

The size of a large dog, the animal’s traditional range is the Middle East, parts of Asia, and the Balkans.

But in recent years the species has undergone a remarkable expansion out of its Balkan strongholds toward the north and west, turning up in places as far apart as Norway, Austria, and the Netherlands.

Scientists are still trying to work out exactly why this secretive, shy animal is colonizing so much new territory. But they agree that it is almost without precedent.

“It is one of the largest-range expansions for a mammal that we have ever witnessed, anywhere in the world,” says Nathan Ranc, an ecologist and jackal expert from the University of California, Santa Cruz. “Golden jackals have been in Europe for thousands of years but restricted to small areas of the Balkans and Greece.

“The only other species it could be compared to is a similar expansion of coyotes in the U.S.”

An ecological puzzle

Many scientists believe the range expansion of the golden jackal is being propelled by the same factor as that of the coyote – the persecution of wolves.

They think the jackal – the next canid down on the ladder in terms of size – is taking advantage of an ecological niche that has opened up as a result of wolves being shot, trapped, and poisoned in so much of their historic range in Europe.

“We think there’s a correlation,” Dr. Ranc says. “This is what happens when the population of a dominant carnivore goes into decline. We think the persecution of wolves was a trigger. The jackal has a lot in common with the coyote.”

John Linnell, another ecologist who has studied the phenomenon, is not so sure.

“The timing doesn’t seem to be quite right, given that wolves are resurgent in many parts of Europe,” says Dr. Linnell, from the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research.

He notes that wolves have been persecuted for well over a century, yet the expansion of golden jackal populations has happened relatively recently. Golden jackals were spotted in Norway for the first time last year, marking the northernmost extent of their expansion so far.

He thinks other factors are at play, including the fact that once they joined the EU, Eastern European countries were required to reduce their use of poison baits.

“Jackals are scavengers, so a reduction in the use of poison would benefit them,” he says.

A change of land use has also probably helped golden jackals. Across much of Europe, low quality, marginal agricultural land has been abandoned, providing just the sort of scrubby woodland and open pasture that jackals like.

Global warming could also be a factor. “We know that jackals don’t like deep snow,” says Dr. Ranc. “Climate change may be giving them an added boost.”

They are certainly able to adapt to many different environments. In addition to turning up in Italy, they have been observed in Denmark, Poland, France, and Austria.

In Germany it was reported last month that golden jackals are now breeding, while in the Netherlands a jackal was photographed by a farmer who was planting seed potatoes in May.

“I thought it was a fox at first, then a wolf,” Jan Kolhorn told NOS, the Dutch national broadcaster.

“It’s an incredible animal”

Unlike Burmese pythons in Florida or American mink and nutria in Europe, golden jackals are not an invasive, alien species, experts say. “To be invasive, a species has to be transported by humans, either knowingly or unknowingly. But jackals are moving of their own accord,” says Dr. Ranc.

Scientists say the arrival of the golden jackal should not be cause for alarm, noting that they rarely seem to prey on domestic animals such as sheep.

“A jackal might take the odd chicken or domestic rabbit, possibly a small lamb, but it is not an animal that should give farmers a great deal of concern,” says Professor Luigi Boitani from Rome University.

He is the chairman of the Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe, a group of scientists who study bears, wolves, lynx, wolverines, and the golden jackal. “It’s an incredible animal, capable of widespread dispersion.”

In Tuscany, the sighting of the jackal has been greeted with delight rather than dread.

Marco Morelli, the director of Fondazione Parsec, an environmental organization, called it “a stroke of luck” that the animal was captured on film.

Even though global warming may not be a primary driving factor in the range expansion of the golden jackal, it is likely to have an increasing effect on animals in the future, says Dr. Linnell.

“We will see other species expanding their range as a result of climate change. It’s a natural process. And countries will have to accommodate them.”