Abstract In autumn 1992 two subadult males, reared in captivity, were radio-tagged and released on the northern slopes of Monte Carso near the city of Trieste. The annual mean size of the home range resulted to be 38.5 ha by the Outer Polygon method and 66.4 ha by the Harmonic Mean method. The mean size of the home range was found to be smaller, with both methods, in the hierchical-territorial period (13.5 and 7.3 ha respectively) and larger in the indifferent period (22.5 and 24.5 ha respectively). We found the same trend for the overlap between the home ranges (25.5% in the yearly period, 1.5% in the hierarchical-territorial period and 16.8% in the indifferent one). The animals avoided open vegetation areas (meadows and pastures) and the urbanized zones. They showed a slight preference for woods and used areas between urbanized zones depending on their availability.