Agricultural damage caused by wild ungulates can be economically very important worldwide. In Europe, the impact of wild ungulates causes significant losses to crops, mainly to maize, where it exceeds billions of US dollars annually. The objective of this study was to explore the spatial and temporal characteristics of damage caused by wild boar and red deer to maize, in order to propose efficient prevention and mitigation of losses to agricultural producers worldwide. The study was carried out in three forests neighbouring maize fields in two different areas. We recorded data on the proportion, type and the location of the damage by ungulates within the fields. According to our results the damage varied greatly along the vegetation growth period (from green plant to corncob), likely due to the changes in the food supply provided by maize. The proportion of damaged plants increased through the growing season and was probably affected by the appearance of corncobs. Seventy to 90% of the total damage occurred within a 300 m distance to the forest edge. Considering these findings, we propose to arrange a protocol for damage prevention based on damage risk maps.

In our study, we examined the movement of two wild boars marked with GPS/GSM transmitters in city of Budapest. We hypothesised that: the wild boars do not leave the urban area (H1); the wild boars prefer places that are less disturbed by people, and which are rich in potential hiding places (H2); and their home ranges would be smaller than that of wild boars living in non-urban environment (H3). Based on our results, we accepted our first hypothesis, as the wild boars had not left the area of Budapest. However, we partly rejected our second hypothesis: the wild boars preferred urban areas that were forested and richly covered with vegetation; however, human presence therefore disturbance was also high in those areas. The home range sizes of both marked wild boar sows were remarkably smaller than those of the wild boars living in natural environment (H3). City habitat modification, e.g. clearing undergrowth vegetation, could result that wild boars cannot find any hiding places. The significant part of food sources will disappear with the elimination of these places. By eliminating the two main factors together could prevent wild boars finding their living conditions within the city.

Wild boar (Sus scrofa) density has significantly increased worldwide. In Europe, oak acorns are basic diet items for the species. However, regeneration of temperate oak forests has become excessively low. Thus, better understanding of the patterns and dynamics of wild boar rooting and the spatiotemporal relationship between the acorn density and the rooting has special importance. In our study, the acorn density, the presence and intensity of the rooting were measured monthly in a 28-ha oak forest stand between 2016 October and 2019 April. Study site was divided to 400 m²grid cells to investigate the spatiotemporal patterns of the rooting. Comparing the acorn densities, we stated that in the first 2 years, but not in the third one, the oaks were masting. During the acorn-rich periods (October–April), significant inter-annual differences were found in the proportions of the disturbed area between the non-mast and the other two mast years. Throughout our observations, 9.12% of the cells stayed undisturbed. On average, in 12.59% of the cells new rooted patches appeared, and 15.6% of them was repeatedly disturbed. Rooting were mainly litter disturbances in 71.75% of cases. Throughout acorn fall periods (September–November), the most intensively rooted sites were the poorest in acorns, while the unrooted sites were the richest. Our results demonstrate that wild boars have a great effect on acorn density and on the whole forest by rooting almost the entire ground surface at least once, but also the masting of the oaks has a crucial role in their rooting dynamics.

The golden jackal has rapidly expanded across Europe in recent decades and was one of the first to reappear in Hungary. Using hunting bag data from the National Game Management Database from 1995 to 2021, we examined the spatial expansion of the species and its population dynamics. Our findings reveal an exponential increase in the golden jackal population since the mid-1990s, with an average annual growth rate of 40% in the hunting bag and an occupancy of 86% of the country. The average speed of the range expansion was 536.9 km² year^-1 until 2007 and increased to an average of 5,289.1 km² year^-1 during the second part of the expansion process. The density of shot golden jackals also shows an increasing trend with a substantial presence of outliers, indicating that nearly 10% of the hunting bag demonstrates exceptionally high numbers, particularly in southwestern Hungary. The spread originated in the southwest and extended towards the northeast and northwest. However, the increase of the hunting bag slowed down and the expansion rate has decreased in the previous two years, leading us to anticipate that the golden jackal population will stabilize soon, as the expansion has reached its maximum in Hungary. This indicates that from the initial settlement to the stabilization of the population, the time span can be two to three decades.

The successful European expansion of the golden jackal (Canis aureus) is influenced by space use and an exploration of their movement ecology may promote the application of appropriate population management. However, little is known about their home range dynamics in forest–agricultural landscapes with dense populations and high hunting pressure. We evaluated home range size variations and movement patterns of golden jackals in southwestern Hungary, focusing on sex and age differences, seasonal variability, and the prevalence of irruptive nomad behavior. Over a 2‐year study, we tracked 45 global positioning system (GPS)‐collared jackals (22 females and 23 males) for an average of 245 days, collecting 236,675 hourly location points. We analyzed home ranges using the 95% kernel home range method, and used trajectory segmentation to identify residents (single home range) versus non‐resident or irruptive nomads (multiple home ranges or home range shifts). Residents exhibited a mean (± SE) home range size of 14.38 ± 2.27 km² (n = 28), with significant individual variability (up to a 100‐fold difference). Males had larger home ranges than females, and juveniles had larger home ranges than adults, particularly during pup‐rearing periods. The home range shifts were more frequent for juveniles than adults, and females than males, whereas sex and age did not affect home range size of irruptive nomads (n = 17). Jackals mostly used forests close to forest–agricultural area edges and far from artificial structures. Our data revealed high interindividual space‐use variability and intra‐year differences in home range sizes between sexes, and substantiated the high ecological plasticity of this species. Our results likely relate to the complex social system of golden jackals along with a dense population, high hunting pressure, absence of large carnivores, and seasonal flexibility in response to abundant food sources.