Authors: Németh, Attila; Moldován, Orsolya;

Subterranean blind mole rats of Central Europe were once considered as pests, now facing extinction. They have unparalleled taxon diversity within Europe and five endemic chromosomal species can be found even in the Pannonian Basin. These taxa have particularly unfavourable conservation status having only a few small, isolated populations with low population numbers and restricted distribution, many of them facing serious threats. However, the conservation of the populations often difficult, as they are typically located in territories not under protection, rather in places of investment, development, construction or agricultural use. These situations are unusual and difficult to manage for nature conservation authorities. We shows the current conservation status of all the endemic species of the Pannonian Basin based on the researches and field data collections of the last 20 years. We also present the challenges caused by the most problematic localities. The conservation efforts made so far, the applied solutions and the lessons we learned might contribute to the successful conservation management of other species or similarly sensitive situations.