Co-authors: Alieksandr Mysiev, Irina Rotenko and Dmitry Mysiev
Within the winter of 2023-2024, we’ve captured two enlightening collection of footage that includes massive highway pipes, remnants of Soviet-era building, now seamlessly built-in into the forest’s panorama. These buildings, although deserted by people, have discovered new objective as integral components of the native ecosystem, steadily visited by varied animal species.
Amongst these guests, the big predators—wolves and, notably, lynxes—stand out. Prior weblog entries have documented their presence in such man-made buildings: (1), (2), (3), (4); nonetheless, the latest footage gives additional proof of their actions.
These recordings spotlight the importance of those pipes as distinctive components inside the habitat, serving as focal factors for territorial marking and communication amongst carnivores, notably lynxes. Intriguingly, we additionally noticed a definite conduct in wolves, which appeared apprehensive throughout their visits to the pipes. This provides a brand new layer to our understanding of the complicated interactions and ongoing extreme interference between wolves and lynxes within the forest (learn extra on the subject: (1), (2), (3), (4).
These findings contribute to our understanding of the interspecies dynamics in Naliboki Forest, highlighting the adaptive use of human-made buildings by wildlife.
You may assist the analysis on massive carnivores in Naliboki Forest by shopping for only a espresso. It is going to assist to maintain the research going.