European jackal

The European jackal (Canis aureus moreoticus) is a subspecies of the golden jackal present in Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Southeast Europe. It was first described by French naturalist Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire during the Morea expedition. There were an estimated 70,000 jackals in Europe according to one source; another source gives an estimate of 97,000 to 117,000 individuals. Though mostly found in South-Southeastern Europe, its range has grown to encompass parts of the Baltic in Northeastern Europe, in Eastern Europe (Poland), Southern Europe, mostly in Italy (first observed in 1984), with further sightings in Western Europe (including in France, Germany); several other countries in mainland Europe have reported the jackals as vagrants. One theory, which has been set forth to explain the rapid spread of the species since the 1970s to colonise European areas in which they were perhaps likely never historically native, is that grey wolf populations are less abundant than in the historic past.