Looking for European hare in Europe…
Nowadays in the context of urbanization and continuous destruction of wild natural habitats even such common species as a hare has problems with surviving. In the whole of Europe since 60-s number of hares has been rapidly declining. Originally an inhabitant of grasslands brown hares like open biotopes such as steppes and farmlands, this species became a famous farmland specialist. However, we see that different approaches to agricultural and urban management might affect the population significantly.
Human during his cultural and technical development has been creating new biotopes like agricultural and urban landscapes. Moreover, the landscape is transforming and changing all the time. We have to find somehow the balance between wild nature and human-induced areas, because people like wild nature, people need to see wild nature, it makes them feel calmer and happier. Besides we being conscious can realize that we are not the only one species on the Planet and from my point of view we have to respect other living creatures and help them according to our humanity.
Brown hare is still not a very rare species, however, it is a prey object for many carnivorous animals such as lynx, wolves, eagle owl, which are quite threatened in human-transformd landscapes.
One big part of my dissertation is observing hares in Prague. For the purpose we use thermal binoculars which contain an infrared sensor to detect the heat discharged by objects. It is very helpful, especially at night time, when hares are the most active.
We find which places are the most preferable by hares and analyze why. As a practical result we would like to prepare certain recommendations for urban planning and for management of green areas inside of the city.
First of all we collect data about abundance of hares in different types of habitats such as: forests, parks, grasslands and panel housing in administrative Prague boundaries. Second — we note which behavior of hare we observe because it indicates of how animal feels in the area. To see how urbanization affects hares we note the distance which animal starts to escape for. Finally we will compare all collected information in different city zones in accordance with distance from city center.
Let’s hope that we will find the way to coexist with Nature in harmony.
