Censuses

The activities carried out by the Authority related to wildlife management are:

• censuses;
• occasional sightings;
• findings of injured or dead animals;
• drafting of the Wildlife Rebalancing Plan (if necessary);
• implementation of selective culling (only if the Rebalancing Plan is active);
• archiving of data and sending to regional and national databases (I.S.P.R.A.).

Some definitions

• Wildlife census: counting of all individuals of a species belonging to a population living in a certain territory, in a specific period of time, and their distribution by sex and age class;
• Exhaustive census: absolute, complete count, by direct observation, aimed at determining the total number of animals present at a given moment within a specific area;
• Census by sample zones: aimed at evaluating density in one or more sample plots of a specific area under examination, in order to extrapolate data relating to the entire territory.

Why do we need to census animals?

• Human need for knowledge;
• Monitoring the population status to compare trends over the years;
• To detect the effects of diseases, predations, climatic and environmental changes, anthropogenic disturbance;
• It is a basic data for culling (mandatory);
• Wildlife is everyone's heritage (inalienable state heritage);
• It can be fun...

How and when can animals be counted?

• When it is easier for us to see them;
• Seasonally (usually in spring and autumn) taking advantage of the "weak moments" of the animals themselves, allowing them to approach = hunger and mating;
• Throughout the year on sample transects.

Parchi Alpi Cozie - Updates 2018

Parco Orsiera Rocciavrè - Summary charts.

Park Grand Bosco of Salbertrand

The Census of the Deer Species (Cervus elaphus): the historical series of data has been computerized since 1982, but it is necessary to consider the evolution stages in the modalities of carrying out the censuses, in particular:

• the Park was expanded from 2005 to 3774 hectares in 1995. This also led to a variation in the total surface area and the Useful Area for the Species, which is the technical data that should be referred to for estimating the density of a species. Today it is calculated at 3600.15 hectares for this ungulate.
• Starting from 1998, the censuses have been officially carried out in a single day, simultaneously with the Alpine Hunting District Torino2, thus eliminating double stations and double counts. Before this date, the censuses were repeated for several days and the highest quantity was taken as data, regardless of the counts of other nearby Institutes, or stations of different institutes were overlapped in border areas where each team counted "their own" deer, without then comparing the cards.
• Starting from 2002, the spring census is also carried out simultaneously with CATO1 because it has been realized that, in years with little snow, a significant herd of deer that gravitates in the crest area between Col Blegier and Mottas may move towards Val Chisone and become the subject of the census in the Pragelato sector.
• From 2002, the autumn census, during the rutting season, is added to the spring census, in order to obtain a better population structure (something that the spring census did not allow, given the high number of undetermined animals). Between mid-September and early October, in the early dark hours or at dawn, from strategically pre-identified points divided into sectors, the vocalizations of adult males are listened to simultaneously throughout the Park, and the structure of the harems is checked.