Pape Nature Reserve is a Nature Reserve in
Latvia about 15 km south of
Liepaja. It stretches over 5700 ha and consists mainly of
bogs,
carr forests and
dunes around
Lake Pape. It is an important site for migrating birds. Every autumn about 50,000 birds rest in the reserve. Large grazers, like
heck cattle
Heck cattle are a hardy breed of domestic cattle. These cattle are the result of an attempt by Heinz and Lutz Heck to breed back the extinct aurochs (''Bos primigenius'') from modern aurochs-derived cattle in the 1920s and 1930s. Controver ...
,
konik horses and
European bison
The European bison (''Bison bonasus'') or the European wood bison, also known as the wisent ( or ), the zubr (), or sometimes colloquially as the European buffalo, is a European species of bison. It is one of two extant species of bison, along ...
have been introduced to the reserve with support of the
WWF. There is a visitor centre in the reserve.
Fauna
Heck cattle and horses were introduced in 1999, European bison were introduced a few years later. In 2007 there were more than 80 heck cattle and more than 100 horses in the reserve. European bison were still below 20 and slowly increasing. Before the introduction of the three large herbivore species, the reserve was already home to
moose
The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult ma ...
,
red deer
The red deer (''Cervus elaphus'') is one of the largest deer species. A male red deer is called a stag or hart, and a female is called a hind. The red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Anatolia, Iran, and parts of we ...
,
roe deer
The roe deer (''Capreolus capreolus''), also known as the roe, western roe deer, or European roe, is a species of deer. The male of the species is sometimes referred to as a roebuck. The roe is a small deer, reddish and grey-brown, and well-adapt ...
,
wolf
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly un ...
and
lynx. So the reserve harbours now an almost complete
holocene
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...
mammal fauna.
Lake Pape - Latvia
. Information provided by the Large Herbivore Network
References
* Volker Hagemann: ''Lettland entdecken''. Trescher Verlag; Auflage: 1. A. (28. Juli 2006), S. 274–275,
* E. Marris (2009): ''Conservation biology: Reflecting the past''. Nature 462, 30–32
Nature parks in Latvia
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