Gazelles at Vashlovani Protected Areas

Last week, the second phase of the project “Reintroduction of Gazelles in the historical Habitats of the Caucasus”, carried out by the Agency of Protected Areas has been completed. Under the frameworks of the project a number of gazelles brought for reintroduction purposes from Azerbaijan to Georgia have been let to the wilderness. The mentioned project is supported by the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan and initiated by the WWF and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany (BMZ).

It should be noted, that during the past centuries the residential area for Gazelles included quite extensive parts of the south and south-east territories of Georgia. Later, due to the illegal poaching and human irresponsibility the species become extinct.      

On the current stage, there have been 10 gazelles brought to Georgia and for the monitoring purposes they all have been equipped with special sensor collars. According to their adaptation process in the new environment, it is planned to bring 150 more gazelles to their historical habitats.    

Gazelle Reintroduction Project to their historical habitats on Vashlovani PAs has been implemented through the support of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ministry of Environment of Turkey since 2009. However, in the recent years large part of gazelles transported from Turkey have died due to the obstacles associated with adapting to the new environment and overtime the need for the re-implementation of the project has emerged.