Stoat, capercaillie and chamois spotted in the canton

After its first year, the "Wild Neighbours" project has a positive view of the canton of Zug, although personal contact with the volunteers could be improved.

A few days ago, a walker spotted a stoat near the Baarburg, and managed to photograph the animal (see picture). Back home, he posted the sighting and the photo on the website of the "Wilde Nachbarn (Wild Neighbours)" project. This observation is one of about 900 reported in the canton of Zug since the project was launched a year ago.

"These are very pleasing figures for a project of this size," says Anouk Taucher. The wildlife biologist is a research assistant on the "Wild Neighbours" project, which started in Switzerland in 2016. What has been spotted so far in the canton of Zug? In addition to the usual suspects such as foxes, hedgehogs and badgers, there were many surprising findings: "The frequent observations of stoats in Zug are currently striking, especially in the last three months," says Anouk Taucher. Perhaps it is because its white winter coat stands out strongly against the green meadows.

Many stoats have been recently sighted in the canton of Zug
Photo: wildenachbarn.ch/David Doda

The canton of Zug is interesting because it also includes high altitude areas, explains Taucher: chamois, alpine salamanders or capercaillie have been observed there. She was also surprised that no badgers were registered for the municipality of Cham. And: "Generally, there weren't as many entries for squirrels as could have been expected." A year ago, a beaver was spotted at the Brüggli in Zug – in the middle of a settlement area.

The data is intended to help the protection of species
The project's scientific team has three main objectives. The first is to raise public awareness of the wild animals on their doorstep. Secondly, knowledge gaps are to be filled: "There are no systematic recordings of the stocks of many animal species," says Taucher. These would make it possible to detect trends and changes in inventory at an early stage. Finally, the third objective is to use the collected data to ensure the basis for the protection and promotion of wild animals in the settlement area.

This type of data collection is referred to as "Citizen Science". "The special thing about this is that not only trained scientists, but also lay people can participate in research projects. This gives citizens the opportunity to actively participate in science," continues the website. This makes a broad and extensive data collection possible. One concrete result of the project is already available: the new " Mammal Atlas " of the Swiss Society of Wildlife Biology was published this week, and documents the habitats of wild animals with the help of data collected from all over Switzerland.

Is there still room for improvement in the "Wild Neighbours" project? "More contact with the population would be good," says Anouk Taucher. This hasn't really been easy up to now, in particular due to the Corona pandemic. More events are therefore planned for next year.

The project is supported by the Canton of Zug, ten of the municipalities and the local nature conservation organisations.

You can report observations under https://zug.wildenachbarn.ch.