Fanatele Clujului south meadow-steppe habitat

A site which remained until now in most of its parts untouched by grazing but which is progressively and drastically reduced through the grazing produced by two large farms - one for sheep another one with cattle situated nearby in the western and southern part of the site.

This site is now the best preserved, the largest and thus the most valuable meadow-steppe habitat from the whole Transylvania .

The part which is yet best preserved with abundant populations of the indicator species and the largest populations from Transylvania, Romania and the whole EU of the species Serratula lycopifolia and Serratula wolffii. A few individuals of Verbascum nigrum were also spotted here.  Most of the owners of the patches of meadow-steppe grasslands from the lower part of the slope do not mow the hay from there anymore due to the fact that they are no more animal breeders but refused to rent their hayfields to sheep farm from the upper part of the slope due to the fact that they offer only something like 200-300 RON / 20 ha of hayfield / year. Nonetheless there is a  high risk that the offer become better in the coming years and the site to become degraded in its best preserved part. These are however the best sites with meadow-steppe grasslands from the whole region which should be immediately protected. These files 1 and 2 reveals the spatial structure of the habitat in Google Earth.