Vaslui: Invasion of jackals in the Luncii Prutului area; the authorities estimate a herd of over 400 animals

The number of jackals has recently increased in Vaslui County, with the authorities estimating a population of over 400 such animals.

Problems are registered especially in the Luncii Prutului area, where the intervention of the authorities is limited, considering that it is a border area where hunting is not allowed.

‘Within Vaslui County, we have the Prut River, which is border water with the Republic of Moldova. We manage and administer all the riverside hunting funds of the Prut, respectively from the river bed and the main river bed. The Prut being a border water, it is drawn and has a strip of protection of the state border. According to the Romanian laws in force, hunting of any species is not practiced on the protection strip of the state border. On the territory of Vaslui county, the Prut has a length of 190 kilometers, and the vegetation in the area is typical of flooded areas. We cannot intervene there with hunting weapons, as we would violate the law of the Romanian state. We are not allowed to shoot and use firearms except according to the legal provisions, from the protection strip of the state border of Romania, 500 meters inside. There are several tens of thousands of hectares that are simply wild’, Vasile Negru, director of the Vaslui County Association of Sports Hunters and Fishermen (AJVPS), declared for AGERPRES on Tuesday.

According to him, the jackals have also advanced in the other areas, the plain area, the hill area in the West and North-West of Vaslui county, because it is a species that migrates a lot, it goes from 25 to 30 kilometers per night, in in order to ensure food. Being a carnivorous species, the jackal consumes corpses, wild animals, but there have also been cases where animals from households or farms were attacked.

Citizens are periodically informed to notify the authorities if they notice the presence of jackals, and animal breeders are advised to fence their properties.

“Animal owners, especially those who keep sheep, cattle, goats in the outskirts of the towns, should surround their properties where they raise the animals with good, healthy fences, to secure them, that it is their property, it is their work, not leaves them exposed to this merciless and very, very aggressive predator’, warned Vasile Negru.

The appearance of the jackal on the territory of Vaslui county took place on the Lunca Prutului, after 2012, when hunting in the Danube Delta was closed by a Government decision, and the jackals multiplied in geometric progression. Then, in 2018 – 2019, with the penetration of African swine fever in the humid area of ​​Romania, in the territory of the delta, through the effects of the virus permanent food was provided for jackals, and they multiplied uncontrollably.

(AGERPRES/FOTO radioiasi.ro – illustrative image)