The Ivo Wildlife Park!

The Ivo Wildlife Park is open year-around and offers the following for individuals and groups.

1. Visiting the Wildlife Park (about 2-2,5 hours)
2. Photo and filming opportunities
3. Excursion in the Wildlife Park (about 5 hours)

Contact: mob: 004-0742 156971
Web: http://www.parcdevanat.ro

Rules
The following rules must be observed to ensure a safe, educational and enjoyable visit for both our guests and animals:

1. Follow the Guide's instructions
2. Smoking is not allowed in the park
3. Please do not litter
4. Please do not abandon your group
5. Taking photos and filming is not allowed
7. Taking pets into the park is prohibited
Please note: Visitors enter at their own risk.

Red Deer (Cervus elaphus)

Taxonomy
Biologists have until recently stated that Red Deer and Wapiti (or Elk) are the same species forming a continuous distribution throughout temperate Eurasia and North America, based on fertile hybrids that have been produced under captive conditions. Animal behavior is generally different in captivity than in the wild, and the assumption that the same results would happen in the wild as in captivity is not necessarily the best test methodology to determine speciation.
Recent DNA studies conducted on hundreds of samples from Red Deer and Elk subspecies concluded, that that not more than 9 distinct subspecies of Red Deer exist and that they should be considered to be two separate species. The Wapiti or Elk from Northern and Eastern Asia and North America and the Red Deer from Europe, western Asia and North Africa represent two distinct species. Surprisingly the Elk is more closely related in DNA to the Sika Deer and to Thorold's deer than to the Red Deer.

Subspecies
Additionally there are some central Asiatic subspecies (Tarim group, including Bactrian deer and Yarkand deer), which are geographically isolated from Wapitis and western Red Deer by the Takla Makan and the Pamir Mountains. They represent a primordial subgroup, which is genetically more related to the Red Deer than to the Wapitis. It remains unclear which clad the Kashmir stag belongs in, though it, in terms of zoogeography, is most likely to belong in the central Asian group.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources originally listed nine subspecies of Red Deer (Cervus elaphus): three as endangered, one as vulnerable, one as near threatened, and four without enough data to give a category ("Data Deficient").

Behavior
Mature Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) usually stay in single-sex groups for most of the year. During the mating ritual, called the rut, mature stags compete for the attentions of the hinds and will then try to defend hinds that they attract. Rival stags challenge opponents by belling and walking in parallel. This all owes combatants to assess each other's antlers, body size and fighting prowess. If neither stag backs down a clash of antlers can occur, and stags sometimes sustain serious injuries.
Dominant stags follow groups of hinds during the rut, from August into early winter. The stags may have as many as 20 hinds to keep from other less attractive males. Only mature stags hold harems (groups of hinds) and breeding success peaks at about 8 years of age. Stags 2-4 years old rarely hold harems and spend most of the rut on the periphery of larger harems, as do stags over 11 years old. Young and old stags that do acquire a harem hold it later in the breeding season than those stags in their prime. Harem holding stags rarely feed and lose up to 20% of their body weight. Stags that enter the rut in poor condition are less likely to make it through to the peak conception period.
Male European Red Deer have a distinctive "roar" during the rut, which is an adaptation to forested environments, as opposed to male Wapiti (or American Elk) which "bugle" during the rut in adaptation to open environments. The male deer roars to keep his harem of females together. The females are initially attracted to those males that both roar most often and have the loudest roar call. Males also use the roar call when competing with other males for females during the rut, and along with other forms of posturing and antler fights, is a method used by the males to establish dominance. Roaring is most common during the early dawn and late evening, which is also when the crepuscular deer are most active in general.

Breeding, gestation and lifespan
Red Deer mating patterns usually involve a dozen or more mating attempts before the first successful one. There may be several more mating before the stag will seek out another mate in his harem. Females in their second autumn can produce one and very rarely two offspring per year. The gestation period is 240 and 262 days and the offspring weigh between 15 and 16 kilograms (33 to 35 lb). After two weeks, calves are able to join the herd and are fully weaned after two months. Female offspring outnumber male offspring more than two to one and all Red Deer calves are born spotted, as is common with many deer species, and lose their spots by the end of summer. However, as in many species of Old World Deer, some adults do retain a few spots on the backs of their summer coats. The offspring will remain with their mothers for almost one full year, leaving around the time that the next season offspring are produced. The gestation period is the same for all subspecies.

Fallow Deer (Dama dama)

Distribution and history
The Fallow Deer was a native of most of Europe during the last Interglacial. In the Holocene, the distribution was restricted to the Middle East and possibly also parts of the Mediterranean region, while further southeast in western Asia was the home of a close relative, the Persian Fallow Deer (Dama Mesopotamia) that is bigger and has larger antlers. In the Levant, Fallow Deer were an important source of meat in the Paleolithic Kebaran-culture (17000- 10000 BC), as is shown by animal bones from sites in northern Israel, but the numbers decreased in the following epi-Palaeolithic Natufian culture (10000- 8500 BC), perhaps because of increased aridity and the decrease of wooded areas.
The Fallow Deer was spread across central Europe by the Romans. Until recently it was thought that the Normans introduced them to Great Britain and to Ireland for hunting in the royal forests. However recent finds at Fish Bourne Roman Palace show that Fallow Deer were introduced into southern England in the first century AD. It is not known whether these escaped to form a feral colony, or whether they died out and were reintroduced by the Normans.
The Fallow Deer is easily tamed and is often kept semi-domesticated in parks today. In more recent times, Fallow Deer have also been introduced in parts of the United States. In some areas of Central Georgia, wild fallow deer, not having any natural enemies, have increased to numbers that cause serious damage to young trees. Fallow Deer have also been introduced in Texas, along with many other exotic deer species, where they are often hunted on large game ranches.
One noted historical herd of fallow deer is located in the Ottenby Preserve in Oland, Sweden where Karl X Gustav erected a dry stone wall some four kilometers long to enclose a royal fallow deer herd in the mid 1600s; the herd still exists as of 2006.

Name
The Latin word dama, used for roe deer, gazelles and antelopes lies at the root of the modern scientific name, the late Latin dama, and the German "Dam Hirsch", French "daim", Dutch "Damhert", Italian "daino". The Hebrew name of the fallow deer,..... (yahmur) comes from the Aramaic language. In Aramaic language, '....' (hamra) means 'red' or 'brown'.

Mouflon (Ovis gmelini musimon)

The mouflon (Ovis orientalis orientalis group) is a subspecies group of the wild sheep Ovis orientalis. Populations of Ovis Orientals can be partitioned into the mouflons (Orientals group) and urials or arkars (vignei group).
The mouflons are thought to be one of the two ancestors for all modern domestic sheep breeds. It is red-brown with a dark back-stripe, light colored saddle patch and under parts. The males are horned, some females are horned while others lack horns. Mouflon have a shoulder height of about 0.9 meters and a body weight of 50 kg (males) and 35 kg (females).
Today mouflon occur in the Caucasus, in northern Iraq, and in northwestern Iran. Originally the range stretched further to Anatolia, the Crimean peninsula and the Balkans, where they had already disappeared 3,000 years ago. Mouflon were introduced onto the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, Rhodes, and Cyprus during the Neolithic period, perhaps as feral domesticated animals, where they have naturalized in the mountainous interiors of these islands over the past few thousand years, giving rise to the species known as European mouflon (O. Orientals musimon). They are now rare on the islands and classified as vulnerable by the IUCN. They were later successfully introduced into central Europe, including Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, and even some northern European countries such as Finland. A small colony exists in the remote Kerguelen Islands. Since the 1980s, mouflon have also been successfully introduced into game ranches in North America for the purpose of hunting; however in game ranches pure breeds are rare as mouflon interbreed with domestic sheep and bighorn sheep

Mouflon in Culture
The mouflon is featured on the symbol of Cyprus Airways, as well as on the 1, 2, and 5 cent Cypriot euro coins.
The similarity of the mouflon to domestic sheep, combined with its threatened status, has made it a subject of interest, both scientific and popular, in the use of biotechnology in species preservation.

Roe Deer

Physical appearance
The Roe Deer is a relatively small deer, with a body length of 95-135 cm (3.1 - 4.4 ft), a shoulder height of 65-75 cm (2.1 - 2.5 ft), and a weight of 15-30 kg (33-66 lb). It has rather short, erect antlers and a reddish body with a grey face. Its hide is golden red in summer, darkening to brown or even black in winter, with lighter undersides and a white rump patch; the tail is very short (2-3 cm, or 0.8 - 1.2 in), and barely visible. Only the males have antlers, which are lost during winter, but which re-grow in time for the mating season. The first and second set of antlers are unbranched and short (5-12 cm, or 2 - 4.7 in), while older bucks in good conditions develop antlers up to 20-25 cm (8-10 in) long with two or three, rarely even four, points. When the male's antlers begin to regrow, they are covered in a thin layer of velvet-like fur which disappears later on after the hair's blood supply is lost. Males may speed up the process by rubbing their antlers on trees, so that their antlers are hard and stiff for the duels during the mating season. Roe Deer are the only type of deer that can regrow their antlers during winter.

Habitat and diet
The Roe Deer is primarily crepuscular or primarily active during the twilight, very quick and graceful, living in woods although it may venture to grasslands and sparse forests. It feeds mainly on grass, leaves, berries and young shoots. It particularly likes very young, tender grass with a high moisture content i.e. grass that has received rain the day before. Roe deer will not generally venture in to a field that either has livestock in it (i.e. sheep, cattle), or has recently had it in; this is because the livestock will make the grass very unclean. A pioneer species commonly associated with biotic communities at an early stage of succession, during the Neolithic period in Europe the Roe Deer was abundant, taking advantage of areas of forest or woodland cleared by Neolithic farmers (Boyle, 2006). However, sightings of Roe deer have become more common in back gardens in outer suburbs. One of the latest sightings of this kind was in a back garden in Brentwood, Essex.

Behavior and life cycle
The Roe Deer attains a maximum life span (in the wild) of ten years. When alarmed, it will bark a sound much like a dog and flash out its white rump patch. Rump patches differ between the sexes, with the white rump patches heart-shaped on females and kidney-shaped on males. Males may also bark, make a low grunting noise or make a high pitched wolf-like whine when attracting mates during the breeding season, often luring multiple does into their territory. The Roe Deer spends most of its life alone, preferring to live solitary except when mating during the breeding season.

Reproduction
The polygamous Roe Deer males clash over territory in early summer and mate in early fall. During courtship, when the males chase the females, they often flatten the underbrush leaving behind areas of the forest in the shape of a figure eight called 'roe rings'. Males may also use their antlers to shovel around fallen foliage and dirt as a way of attracting a mate. Roebucks enter rutting in appetence during the July and August breeding season. Females are monoestrous and after delayed implantation usually give birth the following June, after a ten-month gestation period, typically to two spotted fawns of opposite sexes. The fawns remain hidden in long grass from predators until they are ready to join the rest of the herd; they are suckled by their mother several times a day for around three months. Roe deer adults will often abandon their young if they sense or smell that an animal or human has been near it. Young female roe deer can begin to reproduce when they are around 16 months old.

Boar (Sus scrofa)

Physical characteristics
The body of the wild boar is compact; the head is large, the legs relatively short. The fur consists of stiff bristles and usually finer fur. The color usually varies from dark grey to black or brown, but there are great regional differences in color; even whitish animals are known from central Asia. During winter the fur is much denser.
Adult boars average 100-150 cm in length and have a shoulder height of 90 cm. As a whole, their average weight is 60-70 kilograms (132-154 pounds), though boars show a great deal of weight variation within their geographical ranges. Boars shot in Tuscany have been recorded to weigh 150 kg (331 lbs). A French specimen shot in Negremont forest in Ardennes in 1999 weighed 227 kg (550 lbs). Carpathian boars have been recorded to reach weights of 200 kg (441 lbs), while Romanian and Russian boars can reach weights of 300 kg (661 lbs). Boars even approaching this size today are considered exceptional.
The continuously growing tusks (the canine teeth) serve as weapons and burrowing tools. The lower tusks of an adult male measure about 20 cm (7.9 in) (from which seldom more than 10 cm (3.9 in) protrude out of the mouth), in exceptional cases even 30 cm (12 in). The upper tusks are bent upwards in males, and are regularly ground against each other to produce sharp edges. In females they are smaller, and the upper tusks are only slightly bent upwards in older individuals.
Wild boar piglets are colored differently from adults, being a soft brown with longitudinal darker stripes. The stripes fade by the time the piglet is about half-grown, when the animal takes on the adult's grizzled grey or brown color.

Behavior
Wild boars live in groups called sounders. Sounders typically contain around 20 animals, but groups of over 50 have been seen. In a typical sounder there are two or three sows and their offspring; adult males are not part of the sounder outside of a breeding cycle, two to three per year, and are usually found alone. Birth, called furrowing, usually occurs in a secluded area away from the sounder; a litter will typically contain 8-12 piglets. The animals are usually nocturnal, foraging from dusk until dawn but with resting periods during both night and day. They eat almost anything they come across, including grass, nuts, berries, carrion, roots, tubers, refuse, insects, small reptiles--even young deer and lambs.
Boars are the only hoofed animals known to dig burrows, a habit which can be explained by the fact that they are the only known mammals lacking brown adipose tissue. Therefore, they need to find other ways to protect themselves from the cold. For the same reason, piglets often shiver to produce heat themselves.
If surprised or cornered, a boar (and particularly a sow with her piglets) can and will defend itself and its young with intense vigor. The male lowers its head, charges, and then slashes upward with its tusks. The female, whose tusks are not visible, charges with its head up, mouth wide, and bites. Such attacks are not often fatal to humans, but can easily result in severe trauma, dismemberment, or blood loss.

Range
In recent centuries, the range of wild boar changed dramatically because of hunting by humans. They probably became extinct in Great Britain in the 13th century: certainly none remained in southern England by 1610, when King James I reintroduced them to Windsor Great Park. This attempt failed due to poaching, and later attempts met the same fate. By 1700 there were no wild boar remaining in Britain.
In Denmark the last boar was shot at the beginning of the 19th century, and in 1900 they were absent in Tunisia and Sudan and large areas of Germany, Austria and Italy. In Russia they were extinct in wide areas in the 1930s, and the northern boundary has shifted far to the south, especially in the parts to the west of the Altai Mountains.
By contrast, a strong and growing population of boar has remained in France, where they are hunted for food and sport, especially in the rural central and so uthern parts of that country.
By 1950 wild boar had once again reached their original northern boundary in many parts of their Asiatic range. By 1960 they reached Saint Petersburg and Moscow, and by 1975 they were to be found in Archangelsk and Astrakhan. In the 1970s they again occurred in Denmark and Sweden, where captive animals escaped and survive in the wild. In the 1990s they migrated into Tuscany in Italy.

European Hare (Lepus europaeus)

The European Hare or Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus) is a species of hare native to northern, central, and western Europe and western Asia.
It is a mammal adapted to temperate open country. It is related to the similarly appearing rabbit, which is in the same family but a different genus. It breeds on the ground rather than in a burrow and relies on speed to escape.
It is larger, longer-eared, and longer-legged than a rabbit. It has a body size of 50-70 cm and a tail length of 7-11 cm. The weight for a full-grown adult ranges from 2.5 to 6.5 kg. It can run at speeds of up to 70 km/h (45 mi/h). It is strictly herbivorous. It eats grasses and herbs during the summer months but changes to feeding on twigs, bark, and the buds of young trees in winter, making it a pest to orchard farmers.
Normally shy animals, hares change their behavior in spring, when they can be seen in broad daylight chasing one another around meadows; this appears to be competition between males to attain dominance (and hence more access to breeding females).
During this spring frenzy, hares can be seen "boxing". This is where hares strike one another with their paws. For a long time it had been thought that this was more inter-male competition, but closer observation has revealed that it is usually a female hitting a male, either to show that she is not yet quite ready to mate or as a test of his determination.
The hare is declining in Europe due to changes in farming practices. Its natural predators include the Golden Eagle and carnivorous mammals like the Red Fox and Wolf.
Smaller hares native to southern Europe previously regarded as European Hares have been split off as separate species in recent years, including the Broom Hare in northern Spain.

Wild populations
The European Hare is now wild in Eastern North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand and many islands including Tasmania, the Falklands, Barbados and Reunion.
The species was imported to North America from Germany by a farmer living near Cambridge, Ontario, Canada in 1912. It escaped from the farm, successfully colonized fields and woodland edges, and quickly made the "Jackrabbit" a common sight in southern Ontario, New York State and New England where it is sometimes called the 'Eastern Jackrabbit'.
Natural predators such as eagles, owls, foxes, coyotes, and bobcats, together with humans and dogs, have kept the American population under control. Hares have often been hunted or coursed for sport.
"Jackrabbit" in American usage (attested in 1882) more specifically refers to the closely related Black-tailed Jackrabbit (Lepus californicus) and the White-tailed Jackrabbit (Lepus townsendii). The name is supposed to be a shortening of "jackass-rabbit", so called for its long ears.

Mythology
In pre-Christian Britain the hare was associated with the spring goddess Eostre, and a connection lives on in the Easter Bunny celebrations. In Holland, Belgium and some other European mainland countries, it still is the Easter Hare rather than the Easter Bunny.

With Consideration: Arpad Nagy