Analysis of feeding preferences of wild animals in sown grasslands

Grassland restoration in many rural areas is often promoted to address problems of excessive density of wild animals. In order to monitor the real preference of wild animals on artificial grasslands, an experiment was established in a hilly area of Tuscany using different seed mixtures and pure stands of forage species that were utilized only by free ranging wild animals. Animal behaviour on different plots was determined by two methods: (1) a vegetation survey, in order to obtain an Electivity index (E) to evaluate browsing preferences of animals; (2) camera traps to detect the presence and frequency of different animal species in the area and on the plots. The results showed that sown species contributed highly to animal browsing, with differences according to the tested species and mixtures and to the date of feed intake, even if some spontaneous species were highly browsed by wild animals in given periods. Camera trapping showed the almost exclusive presence of roe deer, this species accounted for >97% of recorded videos. This confirmed the intake data obtained from vegetation analysis.