The existing data indicates a steady decrease in the grey wolf (Canis lupus) population of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), but despite this there remains no official protective legislation in place for the species. In an attempt to address the issue of protective legislation, we initiated monitoring projects on the grey wolf in BiH with the support of the Rufford Foundation. The aim of these projects was to obtain data on the presence, activity, abundance, and behavior of wolves, while continuously expanding the area of monitoring. Monitoring has been conducted via camera trapping since 2015. Cameras were set up at several localities, at one of which a confrontation between a wolf and European brown bear (Ursus arctos) was recorded. Since these two apex predators have recolonized common regions and habitats across Europe, resource competition and the possibility of inter-specific conflict is more likely. These conflicts may jeopardize the continued existence and future expansion of populations of both bears and wolves in these recolonized habitats. Accordingly, it is very important to study the nature of their coexistence, and the resulting data is ultimately essential for helping to create or resume conservation management plans for both species. Moreover, these data can help highlight areas for data collection and monitoring, thus providing important baseline information for survey planning.

Abstract The Balkan Peninsula and the Dinaric Mountains possess extraordinary biodiversity and support one of the largest and most diverse wolf (Canis lupus) populations in Europe. Results obtained with diverse genetic markers show west‐east substructure, also seen in various other species, despite the absence of obvious barriers to movement. However, the spatial extent of the genetic clusters remains unresolved, and our aim was to combine fine‐scale sampling with population and spatial genetic analyses to improve resolution of wolf genetic clusters. We analyzed 16 autosomal microsatellites from 255 wolves sampled in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH), and Serbia and documented three genetic clusters. These comprised (1) Slovenia and the regions of Gorski kotar and Lika in Croatia, (2) the region of Dalmatia in southern Croatia and BIH, and (3) Serbia. When we mapped the clusters geographically, we observed west‐east genetic structure across the study area, together with some specific structure in BIH–Dalmatia. We observed that cluster 1 had a smaller effective population size, consistent with earlier reports of population recovery since the 1980s. Our results provide foundation for future genomic studies that would further resolve the observed west‐east population structure and its evolutionary history in wolves and other taxa in the region and identify focal areas for habitat conservation. They also have immediate importance for conservation planning for the wolves in one of the most important parts of the species’ European range.

Abstract To provide the most comprehensive picture of species phylogeny and phylogeography of European roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), we analyzed mtDNA control region (610 bp) of 1469 samples of roe deer from Central and Eastern Europe and included into the analyses additional 1541 mtDNA sequences from GenBank from other regions of the continent. We detected two mtDNA lineages of the species: European and Siberian (an introgression of C. pygargus mtDNA into C. capreolus). The Siberian lineage was most frequent in the eastern part of the continent and declined toward Central Europe. The European lineage contained three clades (Central, Eastern, and Western) composed of several haplogroups, many of which were separated in space. The Western clade appeared to have a discontinuous range from Portugal to Russia. Most of the haplogroups in the Central and the Eastern clades were under expansion during the Weichselian glacial period before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), while the expansion time of the Western clade overlapped with the Eemian interglacial. The high genetic diversity of extant roe deer is the result of their survival during the LGM probably in a large, contiguous range spanning from the Iberian Peninsula to the Caucasus Mts and in two northern refugia.