of the two genders were essentially equal and body mass in both sexes averaged about 6% more in good vole years. Studies of 274 Finnish adult females found that 18% of them produced about half of the fledglings. Breeding attempts in Nizhny Novgorod Russia produced an average number 3.1 young to leave the nest. Despite being farther south than many aforementioned studies (i.e. from Fennoscandia), in Estonia a highly variable breeding success rate was observed to be concurrently happening during prey population cycles. In Slovenia, about 80% of breeding attempts manage to produce at least one fledgling. Another Slovenian study showed a nearly 5% higher breeding success overall due to late summer peaks of edible dormouse (July or later). 7 nests in Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Poland were shown to able to produce an average 2.8 fledglings in a good year but no nest could be found in a poor rodent year. Findings showed that parent Ural owls, particularly the adult female, are able to adjust their breeding cycle to maximize survivorship of their young well given the experience accrued during their relatively long lifespan, and are relatively successful at mitigating issues such as parasitism and infestations in nest boxes if they are being used. Post-dispersal young from Vienna Woods in Austria were radio-tracked and showed a mean dispersal distance of from release site and were shown to experience about a 23% mortality rate. Status The Ural owl is not a densely populated bird but can be locally not uncommon. The IUCN estimates that there are between 350,000 and 1,200,000 individuals living in the wild globally. Most decreases in recent history have been reported from areas where hollow and broken trees were removed from forests.Ahlén, I. (1976). Forestry and the vertebrate fauna. Ecological Bulletins, 59-62. In Estonia, managed forest almost invariably have fewer Ural owls than undisturbed forest has because of reduction of snags and other natural cavities to use.Lõhmus, A. (2003). Do Ural owls (Strix uralensis) suffer from the lack of nest sites in managed forests? Biological Conservation, 110(1), 1-9. However, the general trends are positive for most European Ural owl populations. The erection of nest boxes has caused population increases in several parts of the range, especially Finland. In eastern Europe, it is one of the more stable owl species, though it is far less numerous overall than some (i.e. tawny, long-eared, and little owls (Athene noctua)). Several population increase