Eco-activists from the Rewilding Ukraine community photographed a forest cat on a tree in the Tarutyn Steppe landscape reserve in Odesa.
This species is included in the Red Book of Ukraine, reports Rewilding Ukraine on Facebook.
Eco-activists emphasized that the rare forest cat began to return to the Danube. In addition, other visitors to nature reserves began to meet animals more often.
"The cat was sitting high on a tree, basking in the sun and majestically ignoring people," they said.
It is noted that in Ukraine the species is widespread in the Carpathians, Transcarpathia, small populations have survived in Odesa, Volyn and Bukovyna. In total, about 400-500 forest cats live in the country.
The authors emphasized that L The domestic cat is larger than the domestic cat and has a stockier body, a shorter fluffy tail and a characteristic fur color.
"He behaves like a wild animal and usually hides skillfully from people. Scientists believe that forest cats can interbreed with domestic cats, so in nature you can meet their hybrids with intermediate traits," they said.
The Tarutyn steppe is one of the largest fragments of the natural steppe preserved in Ukraine. Its total area reaches 5,200 hectares.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that in Transcarpathia, in the Uzhan National Natural Park, a red bison, which was considered extinct from the Ukrainian fauna even before the beginning of the 18th century, was caught in the lens of a camera trap.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, the biologist showed impressive photos of 12,000 birds that flew into the national natural park "Tuzlivski lymani" in Odesa.
