The Ratio of Ungulates to Wolves in the Caucasian Nature Reserve

Abstract

The ratio between ungulates as potential victims and wolves as the main predators has been studied in different parts of the Caucasian Nature Reserve: northern, eastern, and southern. The optimum ratio of ungulates to wolves is shown to have been shifted during the stable period in the 1980s for a number of peripheral areas of the nature reserve totaling about 50 000 hectares in area. Following the crisis of the 1990s, these areas included not only all the peripheral sites but also some of the central parts of the nature reserve. From the point of view of a balance in the wolf–ungulate system, at present the functioning of the ecosystem is close to natural at no more than one-third of the territory. One of the main reasons for this is the intensification of anthropogenic economic activities of various kinds just at the borders of the nature reserve and their inevitable impact on the protected ecosystems.