Jaki Dečki – Gull ringing group

We started ringing gulls in 2005. on the rubbish tip Jakuševec in Zagreb. From our humble beginnings, catching gulls using clap nets up until the 2009/2010 season, to switching to cannon netting increasing our catches. Alongside metal rings, we also put plastic rings on gulls. We have caught around 14 000 gulls up to now, with the most numerous being Black-headed gulls (Larus ridibundus) (over 11 000) and Yellow-legged gulls (over 1 300), followed up by Common gulls (Larus canus), Caspian gulls (Larus cachinnans), Herring gulls (Larus argentatus), Lesser black-backed gull (Larus fuscus) and Mediterranean gull (Larus melanocephalus). Our ringing season lasts from November till March, and we spend the rest of the year collecting and analyzing data on the movement of our gulls. We collected more than 23 000 recoveries from all over Europe and the Mediterranean basin. From Norway to Tunisia, and Spain to Russia, rubbish tip Jakuševec seems like the central gathering place for a lot of gulls yearning for some rings.

The ringing group was founded by Luka Jurinović and over 20 ringers of Croatia have been participating in gull ringing, a lot of students, volunteers and enthusiasts have been coming to help us out with even a few people joining us from Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, the United Kingdom…!