CARPATHIAN MOUNTAIN FAUNA REPORT

By Kat Duke

Due to the poverty and lack of development in Romania much of the Carpathian mountain range is still relatively untouched and, therefore, provides vital areas of habitat in which wild animals and birds can thrive without too much human interference.  Traditional methods of livestock management, like using guard dogs to protect sheep and cattle from predation, and carefully controlled forestry, currently allow man to coexist relatively peacefully with much of the wildlife of Romania. However, the country's poverty is also, conversely, what threatens to destroy the balance between man and nature in these areas.  The impending reprivatisation of much of the Carpathians is likely to lead to the shortsighted clearing of much of the mountain forest.  This will lead to the destruction of an environment which has supported some of the highest numbers of large carnivores like wolves, lynx and brown bears, and other mammals and birds, than any other in the whole of Europe.

The much maligned wolf, persecuted by man ever since the two species' path first crossed, suffered a dramatic campaign of destruction in Romania in the mid 1950s (apparently due to livestock depredation), reducing their numbers from around 4,000 down to as few as 1,500 in the late 1960s.  Since poisoning was having a detrimental effect on a wide range of wildlife, 1991 saw the use of poison outlawed and wolf numbers have been recovering ever since.  This recovery has been aided to a degree by the fall of Ceausescu's regime too as, in his time, he had wardens persecute wolves as they preyed upon the stags he wished to hunt.  Ironically, another reason behind the relatively healthy wolf numbers in the Carpathians, where Romania's wolves are concentrated now, is the way in which livestock predation is controlled (ie with dogs as stated above), allowing humans and wolves to coexist quite well.  Numbers today are reported to be almost 3,500, representing as much as 30% of all of Europe's wolf population (outside of Russia), but worryingly conversations with one of the Carpathian Large Carnivore Project's study team cast doubt on the idea that this number is stable and not, in fact, in gentle decline.

Wolves and bears are theoretically completely protected under the Bern Convention, with the lynx suffering a limited hunting season between October 15th and March 1st.  However, bears can be hunted by those with private licences if a livestock threat is perceived and the authorities give the go ahead for a limited cull, and, under those circumstances, wolves can also be shot, but only by wardens and other professional staff involved in hunting.  Unfortunately there can be no protection from the illegal hunting of these animals unless the government come down hard on this widespread crime, and that kind of crack down would seem to be a long way off for a country with significant economic distractions and limitations.

Humans aside, wolves, bears and lynx sit (along with birds of prey and other mammalian carnivores) at the top of the food chain in Romania, being the top carnivores in the mountainous forest environment of the Carpathian range.  Their main prey are red deer, roe deer, and to a degree wild boar, along with a number of smaller animals ranging from hares to earthworms(!).  Primarily though, apart from the omnivorous bears, the prey of the large carnivores is the ungulate population of the mountains and forests.  During the expedition a broad range of tracks were observed in the snow, including those of all three carnivores, boar, red and roe deer, chamois, mustelids and like martens, weasels and perhaps stoats, foxes and possibly wildcats, squirrels, hares, and even, on occasion, mice.  Although a bear, foxes and roe deer were sighted and a couple of volunteers were lucky enough to hear a couple of wolves howling; tracks in the snow, a couple of lynx kill-sites, scats and marking places from the territorial carnivores and scratch marks on trees were the only evidence found of any of the great range of animals making up the fauna of the Carpathian mountain ecosystem, apart from the bird life.  Elusive and shy of humans, these animals are extremely difficult to spot ordinarily, with the exception of the deer species on occasion, and so the necessity for winter tracking was clear.

Birds seen on the expedition included, commonly, collared doves, in and around the towns and farms, house sparrows, seen in the towns and fields in far greater numbers than those left in more developed countries like Britain, and hooded crows, which thrive in Romania in the same numbers that carrion crows do in Britain.  Also, within the areas we were studying there were jays, yellowhammers, bullfinches, chaffinches, great tits, blue tits, long-tailed tits, willow tits, and some goldcrests and even firecrests flitting about in the trees.  The red male and green female crossbills were spotted by many during the expedition too, and three-toed woodpeckers were active in the pines and firs.  Ravens were seen and heard on most days in the mountains, a large group seen together possibly indicating the location of a kill-site which they may have been scavenging off.  The noisy nutcracker was another corvid seen in the forested mountains on a number of occasions; their numbers would be far greater in the summer, but several were seen even in the cold conditions prevailing during the expedition.  The elusive capercallie was also spotted on at least one occasion, shooting across the path to avoid the group who had disturbed it, and taking up a position in a nearby fir tree.  Dippers were seen a couple of times when we were by a fast flowing stream, and a silent treecreeper was seen on one of the tall poplars by the road leading into the valley study area.  The birds of prey seen on the expedition included buzzards and some kestrels, a sparrowhawk or two, a goshawk, and even a beautiful golden eagle which was seen soaring across the mountains when one group reached a land level of over 2,500 feet.

The range of species observed even in harsh winter conditions in the Carpathian mountains can only hint at what may be there in the early summer when food in plentiful and year round population is joined by migrant birds.

Tiny trout fry seen in the all but frozen-up pools of water on the stream bed by the Carpathian Large Carnivore Project's base, spiral-shelled snails and funnel-web spider webs seen in the rock faces of the gorge just outside Zarnesti that we visited, the large owl pellet found within a medieval fortified church complex we also went to, and countless other observations of animal life too numerous to mention here, all contributed to the expedition's understanding of the importance of Romania as a home for a vast range of wildlife.  Despite the prevailing poverty so clearly in evidence, it would seem that, for an immense diversity of wildlife, Romania is still a vital environmental stronghold.  To ruin that would be to cripple the chances that some of these animals have of survival.