Saving a species from extinction can be a back-breaking task.ÌęHungarian conservationists found this out last week when they started to dig out Vojvodina mole rats one by oneÌęas part of an effort to relocate them to safety.
âThis is a very rare species, only around 400 individuals left in the world,â says SĂĄndor UgrĂł, director of the KiskunsĂĄgi National Park in Hungary. âThey are actually much rarer than the well-known symbol of conservation the giant panda.â
âAfter the Iberian lynx or the Mediterranean monk seal, they are one of the rarest animals in Europe,â says GĂĄbor Csorba, head of the Hungarian mole-rat protection committee, which advises the government.
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The species (Nannospalax leucodon montanosyrmiensis) is only known to inhabit Hungary and the province of Vojvodina in northern Serbia.ÌęBut their populations are now under two-pronged threat (see video below).
One of the in Hungary lives in an area just outside the KiskunsĂĄgi National Park that could soon be the site of a new solar power plant.ÌęThe other lives in an area along the Hungarian-Serbian border, where last year the Hungarian government erected a fence to deter refugees from entering the country, inadvertently blocking movement of wildlife, too.
The fence could physically isolate the mole rat population living around the border, and âwill speed up its extinctionâ, the Institute for Nature Conservation of Vojvodina Province.ÌęThe fence has effectively split their population in half, and the increased border control traffic may also be affecting the mole rats.
âItâs difficult to study these animals, we donât know for sure how much the increased traffic from increased border control affects them â but we canât afford to lose any,â says UgrĂł.
So conservationists at KiskunsĂĄgi decided to take some of the animals from the border area to establish a third Hungarian population in a safer location near the village of Ăttömös.
âIt is extremely hard to find a suitable habitat for these animals; this one took us a year to locate,â says Csorba. The species requires a very specific type of soil, climate and vegetation, which is often already under cultivation.
Mole rats are not easy to catch, either. Rangers open the entrance of fresh molehills with a spade and have to avoid accidently injuring the animal as they block their escape with the spade.ÌęThe rangers insert a piece of reed near the entrance, which shakes when the animal comes up to plug the entrance (mole rats donât like draft), indicating when to dig.
âThis is also a unique opportunity to study the formation of a new population from the very beginning,â says Attila NĂ©meth mole-rat expert at KiskunsĂĄgi. âEvery animal got a microchip, a health check-up and we took DNA samples.â
To give them a good start, rangers have already built an artificial burrow half a meter below the surface for each of the seven individuals they have managed to relocate so far. Initially, rangers will regularly check on the animals until they are sure they are thriving in their new home.
Meanwhile,Ìęconservationists are lobbying the government to restrict development of the solar plant on the site of the largest mole-rat population to just 5 hectares instead of the 130 hectares that had originally been proposed.ÌęAnd they hope the site might be protected as part of the national park, but that probably wonât happen for another few months.
Read more: Naked mole rats reveal why they are immune to cancer
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