EVALUATION OF THE MANAGEMENT OF BROWN HARE POPULATION IN VOJVODINA REGION FOR THE PERIOD 1967-2011

Abstract

Every year during the past 45 years (1967–2011), hunting organizations have been sending eye lenses (lens cristallina) to the Laboratory for hunting of the hunting association of Vojvodina for testing and analysis of the percentage of young hares in a micro population to establish the real growth rate. Th ese two parameters combined with the number of hares in spring and cull rate from last year were suffi cient to provide hunting organizations with precise information about hunting dynamics and rate of hunting in current hunting season. At the beginning, (in 1967), only 20%
of hunting organizations submitted the samples, but ten years aft er the first sample had been collected, the percentage has gradually increased to 30% in 1977 Since then, the percentage of hunting organizations that were sending samples increased to 45% in 1987, 60% in 1997, and 70 % in 2007 with a maximum of 77% percentage in 2008. Th roughout the research period of 45 years, the total number of examined and processed eye lenses was 363,380. Out of 8,727 samples approximately 8,075 eye lenses were processed yearly. A small number of hunting organizations which didn’t send any samples haven’t been hunting brown hare in their hunting grounds during these years. During this research, several conclusions were made: the percentage of young hares in populations varies from 38% in 2010 to 70.3% in 1994. Th e average percentage for period of 45 years was 58.4% of young hares in a population. According to the research, the coeffi cient of real growth was 1.58 young hare per female hare. The minimum was 1.13 in 2010, and the maximum was 2.33 in 1994. Th ese analyses provided the actual information about stability and health of hare populations and enable a sustainable longterm planning of these game species.