Prague, Oct 2 (CTK) – Czech scientists have launched “a census” of the country’s shrinking moose population, in which they use the “assistance” of tit birds, the Czech Landscape group, which cooperates on the project with scientists, has told CTK.
Tit birds collect various animal hair in their surroundings and put them in their nests. Scientists have installed 50 birdhouses in the Trebon area, south Bohemia, and they analyse the material collected by the birds.
Of the thousands of hairs in the birdhouses, the scientists detected several ones that may be moose’s. This is yet to be confirmed by a genetic analysis.
The tests will also show to how many moose the hairs belong, what is their sex and how close relatives they are.
A previous research indicated that the last 14 moose were surviving in the Lipno area, south Bohemia, in 2011.
The ongoing census is to specify their number now.
“The moose is able to migrate across large distances, which is why [a moose] registered at more places situated dozens or hundreds of kilometres away from one another may be always the same migrating specimen,” Czech Landscape director Dalibor Dostal said.
In the Czech Lands, the moose was killed out by humans in the Middle Ages. In the second half of the 20th century, it started returning. The first migrating specimen was registered in north Bohemia in 1957, and in 1980, the Czech moose population ranged from 30 to 50.
However, around 2000, their migration route was barred by a new motorway in the south of Poland, and no new moose have been able to come to the Czech Lands since.
As a result, the local isolated moose population is confined to inbreeding which may lead to its gradual degeneration and decline, Czech Landscape says.
Earlier this year, Czech Landscape proposed to introduce a new traffic sign that would warn drivers of the threatening collision with a moose.
