Wild Ungulates
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Increase abundance of wild ungulates in the landscape
Data collection in progress
Iberian Highlands
Spain
Problem: Wild ungulates such as red, fallow and roe deer, Spanish ibex, and mouflon are threatened by intensive hunting pressure, particularly driven hunts. Hunting has also led to a female-biased sex ratio in these populations. A lack of resources and habitat, persecution and new diseases are also threats for these species. In addition, reliable data describing the abundance and trends in populations of wild ungulates are lacking. A decline in wild ungulates destabilises the trophic web by reducing prey availability for predators.
Action: Rewilding Spain is working to purchase hunting rights and work with hunting groups to reduce unsustainable hunting pressures. Camera trap surveys will be used to generate more reliable knowledge of relative abundances, trends and sex ratios of populations of wild ungulates.
Indicator: The distribution and relative abundance of wild ungulates will be used to monitor the trends in these populations in the Iberian Highlands landscape and to understand how they are affected by changes in hunting practices.
Methods
Camera trapping of large mammals will be conducted using a methodology established as part of the Enetwild-European Observatory of Wildlife protocol. The Institute for Research in Game Resources (IREC) will carry out camera trapping on a grid system across all natural parks. Rewilding Spain will use the same methodology to assess wild ungulate populations across all sites where natural grazing is being implemented. Cameras will be rotated around the natural grazing sites on an annual basis, so that each site is monitored every 3-5 years to assess local population trends. The effects of hunting will be assessed using a before-after-control-impact design involving a temporal comparison of the relative abundance of ungulates before and after the changes in hunting management, and a spatial comparison between areas with different hunting regimes. Random encounter models will be used to estimate densities. This will be supplemented with an assessment of the sex ratio of target species, to understand the effects of reducing hunting pressure on the recovery of a balanced sex ratio.
Results
In 2024, camera-trap surveys were carried out by the Institute for Game and Wildlife Research (IREC) in the Serranía de Cuenca and by Rewilding Spain in the natural grazing area of Solanillos. The baseline results from these surveys will be shared here when they become available.
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