Monitoring of the Balkan chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra balcanica) populations in the territory of the Republic of Srpska

Balkan chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra balcanica) is an important indigenous large game species in the Republic of Srpska.This constitutional-legal unit covers around 2.46 million hectares, which corresponds to around 49% of the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina.There are three types of hunting grounds in the Republic of Srpska: (i) special hunting grounds; (ii) sports and recreational hunting grounds; and (iii) commercial hunting grounds.In terms of number and total area, sports and recreational hunting grounds, which were given to hunting associations for management, dominate (N=78) and cover approximately 2.17 million hectares, which corresponds to 88% of the total area of hunting grounds in the Republic of Srpska.The aim of this study is to analyse the dynamics of the number and spatial distribution of Balkan chamois populations in the hunting grounds of the Republic of Srpska in the period 2007-2023.We used data collected by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management for each hunting year, namely the estimated spring count, the culling plan, and the realized culling.The spatial distribution was determined on the basis of field research conducted as a part of the international project Biopolis/2023/009_CPRV_AO2 (i.e., a case study of the Horizon project Biodiversity Genomics Europe, BGE).We included 12 hunting grounds: Baki, Panos, emernica, Vrbnica, Treskavica, Vele, Sjeme, ipovo, Zelengora, Suica, Kamenica, and Gacko.The map of the spatial distribution of chamois was created using a 11 km grid in the ArcGIS 10.3 software package.