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Wildlife

Golden jackal detected in the Jura

A golden jackal was photographed at the Col du Marchairuz in the Vaud Jura. The sighting confirms the spread of the species in Switzerland.

Editorial team Wild beim Wild · 29 January 2021

A golden jackal has been photographed near the Col du Marchairuz VD.

First recorded in the Jura

According to the Kora Foundation and the Canton of Vaud, this marks the first time the dog-like predator has been detected in the Jura. The wild animal was caught on a camera trap during the night of 4 to 5 January 2021 — a trap that had been set up for lynx monitoring.

«The presence of the golden jackal is a novelty in the Jura massif», confirmed Laurence Jobin, spokesperson for the Vaud Department of the Environment. «This is a natural and gradual expansion of the species from Eastern Europe», said Frédéric Hoffmann, head of the Hunting, Fishing and Wildlife Management division.

Between fox and wolf

The golden jackal is a medium-sized member of the canid family, weighing between eight and ten kilograms — placing it between the fox and the wolf. It was first spotted in Switzerland in 2011.

More on the subject of recreational hunting: In our dossiers on recreational hunting gather fact-checks, analyses and background reports. The scientific evidence is presented in the overview Studies on the Effects of Recreational Hunting.

The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.

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