Ábrahám Levente (szerk.): Válogatott tanulmányok IV. - Natura Somogyiensis 15. / Miscellanea 4. (Kaposvár, 2009)
Lánszki József - Sárdi Bertalan - Széles Gabriella: Falvakban és külterületi mezőgazdasági környezetben élő nyestek táplálkozási szokásai
232 Natura Somogyiensis when the animals den under the roofs of inhabited buildings or damage in poultry stock or car engine components (Herr et al. 2009b, in Hungary: Lanszkiné and Lanszki 2005, Heltai and Szőcs 2007). From 1st September to 28th February marten is a fair game in Hungary, its bag shows permanent growing. In the hunting season of 2007/2008 1058 individuals were shot by hunters (Csányi 2008). The marten ’’question” is a new discipline and it could be involved in urban wildlife management. Finding a definition for ‘urban’ is not straightforward and the meaning often depends on the context in which the term is used. Generally, social scientists use urban to refer to areas with high human densities, while ecologists use the term more widely to refer to areas under human influence (McIntyre et al. 2000). In the United States, urban wildlife management has already been handled for a long time (e.g. Southwood and Henderson 2000, Adams and Lindsey 2005), and it has also been the item on the agenda in Europe (e.g. Herr et al. 2009a, 2009b). Managing urban habitats of wild species, possibly their increase, reduction and prevention of caused damages together with constitutioning of legislative regulation are the main sections of it (McIvor and Conover 1994, Decker and Chase 1997, Heltai and Szőcs 2007). Marten is an omnivorous feeder (Waechter 1975); feeding habits examinations show that within choice of food it shows generalist and opportunist features. It can also be the reason behind its successful spread. The marten is mostly terrestrial, but it also hunts and moves easily in the foliage level (arboreal). Seasonally and depending on habitat its diet is also shown high variability, which were also analyzed by numerous studies, such as in urban environments (Holisová and Obrtel 1982, Tester 1986, Rasmussen and Madsen 1985), rural environments, such as villages, farms and outside buildings (Rasmussen and Madsen 1985, Romanowski 1991, Lódé 1994), highland, forest and rocky areas (Martinod and Preatoni 1995, Genovesi et al. 1996, Padial et al. 2002, Prigioni et al. 2008), and wetlands (Lódé 1994). In Hungary, feeding habits of the stone marten were investigated in Aggteleki Baradla cavern (Salamon 1981), Tibolddaróc, village in the Biikk-mountains (Lanszki 1992), Budapest, green district (Tóth 1998), Fonó, village and its surrounding agricultural environment in Somogy county (Lanszki et al. 1999, Lanszki 2003), Látrány, grassland, Somogy county (Lanszki and Nagy 2003), Gödöllő, by human disturbed environment (Heltai et al. 2005), Pettend, village and agricultural environment in the Ormánság region (Lanszki and Széles 2007). However, the marten has been widely distributed and common in Hungary, the habits of those which live in rural areas are relatively less known. The aim of this study was to examine the habitat type dependent feeding habits of the stone marten which exists in villages and farms, including weight of preys, habitat levels, examination by its connection to habitat type and human resources, and collecting of feeding-biology knowledge for the urban wildlife management. In our study we focused on the summer and early autumn reproduction period, when adults are “noisy”, young martens have already been able to hunt, and tenants noticed their presence. Material and methods Study areas The study was performed in the centre and northern part of Somogy county in eight villages and four outside farms (Figure 1) in September and October of 2006, once per localities, parallel with the collection of barn-owl pellets. Study locations (and sample sizes) in villages: Somogysimonyi, Catholic church (n=75 marten scats), Nemesvid,
