Restoring habitats of large carnivores in Montenegro

Montenegrin partner, Public enterprise for national parks of Montenegro and Center for protection and research of birds are working together in restoration of 17ha of protected sites.

June-July of 2024 two intervention sites at Nationa Park Prokletije, and one site at NP Durmitor, that suffered significant damage from forest fires and bark beetle, were cleared of dry and diseased wood mass. The usable tree trunks were used to construct “zaloge”, a type of terraces to prevent erosion of the forest floor, while remaining wood mass was piled up to act as temporary shelter for small species.

The natural regeneration of the sites has proven excellent, but efforts continued with planting of forest fruit species in the terraces to further stabilize the land and provide food for large carnivores and their pray.

At NP Preokletije, locally sourced rosehip cuttings were planted on 15^th and 16^th of November over the area of 5 ha. At NP Durmitor, wild pears were planted on 12^th of December, over the area of 3 ha. Both rosehip and wild pear were collected from the national parks in regard to local law that requires all planting in national parks must be done with materials sourced from the same area.

This, for now, concludes the intervention actions and further monitoring will be implemented to oversee the results.