Working in the field.

The main activities of this project are monitoring and sample collection of grey wolf individuals. Our plan is to focus at the whole territory of Bosnia & Herzegovina, so we have made plan for 5 years and each year we plan to enlarge the number of sampling areas. First of all we have to establish transect zones of wolves’ movement. We already know few locations where they are recorded and we will put focus on these locations (Čemernica, Vlašić and Janj) in the first year of our project, with the aim to confirm our known transect zones. Furthermore, according to new collected data, we aim to establish new sampling locations, in order to cover as larger territory of Bosnia&Herzegovina as it is possible. Our three (in the first year) locations are partially in the northwest and central part of Bosnia & Herzegovina and we will try to enlarge our monitoring territory toward south, east and further at the west and north. During monitoring period we will install photo traps at the transects to have better insight in wolves movement and will collect wolf samples by using non-invasive methods such as hair tripping, faeces collection, etc.

All collected samples will be marked with GPS and entered into the database. After a year of collection we will analyse collected samples in Laboratory of Genetics, Department of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Sciences, Novi Sad, Serbia. The named laboratory has all available equipment for molecular genetics analyses and established protocols for the microsatellite and mtDNA analyses in grey wolves. The raw obtained data of microsatellite variability and mtDNA sequence variability will be processed using adequate computer packages. Bioinformatics approach will provide detection of conservation management units and fulfilling of abovementioned goals. In order to contribute the conservation strategy we will disseminate information to all relevant institutions. Our activities will also include writing of scientific paper that is intend to be published in international scientific journal, in order to spread the information with broader international community.