Considering mammals, Montenegro is one of the least studied countries in Europe. The NGO Wildlife Montenegro is working hard to change this. In 2020, despite Corona challenges the Wildlife Montenegro team has been working hard on recording mammal species present in the country. Thanks to our partners European Mammal Foundation (EMF), the Dutch Mammal Society, and The Habitat Foundation, we managed to make the first overview of mammal species present in Montenegro. Generous support, which becomes a tradition, from our colleagues from the Dutch Mammal Society who donated 50 Longworth live traps, inspired us to work so hard and give impressive results.
We found a new species for Montenegro and confirmed the presence of some species after 30 years or more. One of them was the Western broad-toothed field mouse (Apodemus epimelas). In 2020, besides our goal to conduct surveys in squares approved by the EMF grant, we analysed the already existing data for each UTM square in Montenegro.
So far, the total assumed number of mammal species in Montenegro is 87. For 73 species, the presence was confirmed in at least one UTM square of 50×50 km.
The next steps will be to check other UTM squares for the 73 confirmed species and to continue with new analyses and surveys to confirm the presence of the rest of them.
Author: Marina Đurović (Wildlife Montenegro)
The number of registered species in Montenegro per UTM-grid cell (50×50 km). Grid cells without recordings are not shown.
