Boldy is one of three pups born on 15 May this year. Their mother kept them in and around the birthing den for full 2 months. It was mid-July when longer walks were allowed, never unattended. A 2-year old brother was often the chaperoning adult. From the very start of these longer outings one of the pups wished to explore by himself. Hence Boldy.
All of this was happening on the Bulgarian bank of the Danube. The exact location was the river km 727, i.e. 727 km upriver from the km 0 where Danube enters the Black Sea.
Where Boldy went exploring was at the bait site my father had positioned not far from the main tent of the camp. For bait he used soaked oat flakes, fish and sliced bread. All in all this was some 5 kg of food. Two camera traps were overlooking the bait site, together with a sound recorder. Food and cameras were placed in the evening and taken down in the morning. Downloading and archiving of the material followed.
The method was thus an improvement on close observation of captive jackals – ‘our’ jackals were free to roam the countryside as they wished.
All this work with a resident jackal family began in 2017. By that time it was agreed among the learned community that Bulgaria had the biggest jackal population in Europe – some 30-40,000 individuals. Since the early 2000s the jackal habitat in the country had grown 33 times! This was despite an annual cull in the range of 20-25,000 head. The natural question was: how did the jackals manage to sustain their numbers and increase them in the face of this level of extermination? Not only that, but the jackal tribe was
quickly colonizing the continent. By now jackals are spotted even in the northern periphery of Europe – in the Baltics, in Finland, even in Norway.
We decided to seek the answer in the tightly-knit social structure of the jackal family. A most intriguing question was the help and affection the family members gave to each other. Boldy’s elder brother is an example: instead of roaming the fields, he was left with the pups. All of us know how this feels…
In the posts to follow we will be telling you about the life of this family as it unfolded before us in the summer of 2024.
Dear Nikolina. Thanks for sharing this information and unique footage with us. We are very happy to have met Yulian some 5-6 years ago and we have visited the camp every year since. We have learned so much about these extra ordinary animals and would like to learn and discover more. The yearly visit is always one of the highlights during our summer season in Bulgaria. A pity we missed each other this summer. Warmest regards; Kris and Annelie.