Zoology by Vadim Sidorovich

Observational insights: lynxes and wolves utilizing road pipes in Naliboki Forest

Co-authors: Alieksandr Mysiev, Irina Rotenko and Dmitry Mysiev

In the winter of 2023-2024, we’ve captured two enlightening series of footage featuring large road pipes, remnants of Soviet-era construction, now seamlessly integrated into the forest’s landscape. These structures, though abandoned by humans, have found new purpose as integral parts of the local ecosystem, frequently visited by various animal species.

How Glade and Forest Affect Carrion Scavengers: A Camera-Trap Study

Co-author Irina Rotenko

We wanted to know which animals scavenge on elk carcasses and how often they do it. So we set up camera-traps near two dead elks in Naliboki Forest (a large forest-swamp terrain in northwestern Belarus).

Study on wolf reproduction in Naliboki Forest in 2023: a short report

Co-author Irina Rotenko

During 2023, we continued our long-term studies on the wolf reproduction in Naliboki Forest (see Sidorovich and Rotenko, 2019 and other posts in this blog for details and more information). An outstanding feature of this year for the reproduction of wolves in Naliboki Forest was the relatively low number of lynxes (15-20 individuals). This is 4-5 times lower than that in 2016-2018. Lynx is one of the hostile species for wolf pups (Sidorovich and Rotenko, 2019; Sidorovich, 2022), and presumably killing of wolf pups by lynxes can nullify the breeding efforts of wolves. However, there are other hostile animals to wolf reproduction such as brown bear, bison, elk and red deer, sometimes wild boar and even red fox (Sidorovich and Rotenko, 2019; Sidorovich, 2022). Therefore, we still could not test the hypothesis of which of these antagonistic species plays the main role in killing of wolf pups. This year gave us a unique opportunity to examine the role of lynxes.

How wolves break the idea of the species monogamy

Co-author Irina Rotenko

In our large experience and large dataset on wolf reproduction in Belarus (e.g., Sidorovich and Rotenko, 2019), there is much evidence that the widely spread idea of monogamous wolves is mainly wrong.

Parental wolves chased a brown bear from the place, where their pups stayed

Co-author Irina Rotenko

In Naliboki Forest, a central-western region of Belarus, a dense population of wolves has long existed. In the past decade, brown bears have expanded into this forested area, raising a pressing question: how do these two large predator species interact? Particularly: the aggressive interference of wolves and brown bears, and how their individual characteristics affect the encounter, is important to investigate.

Multi-breeding in a wolf pack. Nowadays it is commoner than breeding of a pair in Naliboki Forest

Co-author Irina Rotenko

Multi-breeding in a wolf pack is one of the enigmatic questions of the grey wolf reproduction. When we began to investigate the wolf reproduction in Belarus (mainly in Naliboki Forest and Paazierre Forest) in details, we found the phenomenon of a pack multi-breeding.

Too early giving birth in wolves got common in Naliboki Forest

Co-author Irina Rotenko

In this post we address to a newly registered trend in breeding of wolves in Belarus, in particular relating to the earlier giving birth in wolves in Naliboki Forest, the central-western Belarus and in the whole country.

Complex hibernating by a brown bear in Naliboki Forest in the winter 2022-2023

Recently we found two hibernation dens of an adult male brown bear, which suggest complex hibernating of the bear. Initial hibernation den was made by the bear in kind of a wide burrow of 2 metres as long. Nearby this initial hibernation burrow-den there were at least five other tries to dig such a burrow-den. The farthest such a try was found on the distance about 80 meters from the actual one. All found preparation of the bear for hibernation were situated in young spruce-birch thickets with big rotten uprooted spruces.

Results of study on wolves in Naliboki Forest in the winter of 2022-2023

Co-author Irina Rotenko

During the winter of 2022-2023, we continued our study on the wolf distribution in Naliboki Forest, the north-western Belarus.

Afeared wolf is investigating a lynx marking spot

Co-author Irina Rotenko

In this blog we have presented our own materials on the interference between wolves and lynxes in Naliboki Forest, the north-western Belarus in several quite large posts before.