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Saturday, July 14 – Robert Katz /David Pinkham
Research Station Ustrzyki Dolne, Poland
Our flight into Warsaw is uneventful. We arrive at 9 am Thursday and are greeted by Dr. Roman Gula of the Polish Academy of Science, the wildlife biologist in charge of the wolf research project in the Bieszczady Mountains. After a five-hour trek south in his tiny European Ford we reach our first night’s destination of Krakow.
We spend Thursday evening and the morning hours of Friday exploring this Medieval City. At 2 PM we depart with Roman for the long, hot journey southeast into the mountainous countryside. We leave the oppressive heat, noise and intense pollution of the city on a challenging drive over the Polish highways and backroads. Circumventing bicycles, horse drawn carts and even the occasional prostitute trying to flag down the passing cars. Speeding vehicles, racing past each other on both the left and right, where there is no apparent room on the narrow road for this dangerous maneuver. Approaching the mountains eases our tension and the cool evening breeze finally brings relief.
We arrive at the research station in Ustrzyki Dolne,a town with about
7,000 inhabitants. The mountains surround the tiny city. The research
station formerly served as housing for local workers before lying abandoned
for years. The Polish Academy of Science has since invested in a renovation
project providing labs, office space, a conference room and housing for
scientists from around the world wishing to conduct research here.
We rise by 5AM to a cool breeze blowing through the lace curtains covering
our windows. By 6 we meet with Roman for the short drive to the starting
point of our first excursion into the countryside. Today’s task is
a hike through the valley to check on 16 snare traps set to catch wolves.
The purpose of the capture is to place collars on captured wolves for
further study through radio telemetry.
We enter the forest by way of a small, remote village called Czarna Dolna. This is rural Poland. Men and women wield hand sickles to harvest hayfields, creating neat geometric rows of stacks. Cows are staked in front yards to consume the overgrown grass. Chickens roam in the yard and hand-dug wells provide the family drinking water. A few kilometers later we come upon a stream called Paniszczowka, which we will cross many times. The mud traps us often, trying to suck the boots from our feet. We sometimes sink all the way to our knees. There is no easy way to cross the snaking waterway that continually bisects our path, except to roll up our pants and wade through.
Soon we are soaking wet from constant forays into the stream. Mud begins to dry on our pants, but our shirts remain soaked with sweat as we begin to rise to the peak of the mountain range. Some of the trap lines we inspect have been vandalized by local people; others do not yield a wolf for today’s study. Roman has mastered the art of setting a trap, using wolf urine and twigs as scent and camouflage. His intent is never to hurt the wolf and every day either he or a research assistant checks each trap. We see many footprints in the mud of roe and red deer, badger, martins and evidence of extensive wild boar activity.
At last we encounter fresh wolf prints, indicating the pack crossed this very trail, perhaps only hours before our arrival. It is a very special feeling to be in the wilderness, knowing we are surrounded by this magnificent predator. There are about 150 wolves in this region of the Carpathians, with a total population of over 10,000 in the entire Carpathian chain that includes the countries of Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia and Romania.
At the final trap we begin to hike up a ridge that will take us to about 700 m.a.s.l. Here we enter a dense gray alder forest. This forest is evidence that the region was once de-forested. Old growth forest remains in the ravines. We come across a hunting lodge maintained by a local forester. We stop to rest. We’re invited inside as he is rebuilding a traditional stove/fireplace. He tells us of his encounter last night with a large brown bear
We continue our hike through high mountain meadows, recently cut over for hay by the forester to create a better habitat for the deer herd. We hike past " high seats" or "killing stands" where big game hunters traditionally lie in wait. The views are magnificent even though the summer burning of hayfields in the distance casts an eerie haze over the valley. We stop and pick sweet, wild rasberries.
As we walk, Roman relates the history of the region, illustrating long struggles of European conflict. The mountains we hike today were originally part of the Kingdom of Poland. In the latter part of the 18th century it was annexed by the Austrian Empire. As a result of the First World War the region returned to the control of the country of Poland. During the Second World War control fell first to the Soviet Union, then to Germany, then back to the Soviet Union. In the early 1950's Poland regained control of the area. Fierce battles resulted in vast bloodshed on the hilltops through both World Wars and even after, as struggle for control continued. There are constant signs of razed villages. Old apple orchards, foundations, cemeteries being hidden by the ever encroaching forest. Our day’s journey ends. We have covered 12 kilometers in just over 5 hours.
Back at the research station we begin to tackle the difficult technical issues surrounding our project of creating an interactive digital site. The remoteness of the region and very slow Internet access makes it a daunting task. As Americans, we are accustomed to instant communication.
The evening hours are spent at a local Pizza café. The air clears after an intense thunderstorm, as we enjoy our pizza under a large outdoor umbrella and have long discussions about the wolf management studies Roman is conducting.
Tomorrow morning at 6, we will once again inspect the 16 traps along the clear mountain stream. R.K.
Sunday, July 15 Research Station Ustrzyki Dolne, Poland
I think that it was difficult for both of us to fall asleep last night. It seemed that the entire village population was in the streets below our windows singing, howling, laughing, and drinking in celebration of a hot, summer Saturday night in Ustrzyki Dolne. Not unlike my memories of my Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn on a summers evening. But on this night, the wolves are just beyond the streets in the surrounding hills.Their howls muffled by the celebration in the streets.
I wake a few minutes before 6, the time I am to meet Roman to begin our morning hike to check the trap lines. David decides to stay behind to work on the web site and I managed to have a glass of juice and squeeze into the research vehicle. A Fiat the size of an American dishwasher. Getting in and out of the car is the most painful part of the journey for me. By the time we arrived at the trail, the heat of the day is already baking down on the open fields.
The hike is uneventful and you could detect the disappointment in Romans voice when he reports that no wolves are caught this day. Our walk back through the muddy ruts and across the streams is in silence. Both of us lost in the world of our solitary thoughts on this steamy Sunday morning in the Bieszczady.
On the drive back to the research station we pass men with wild flowers
grasped in their hands, woman pushing baby carriages, lovers and old woman
and children all walking the country roads in their best cloths on their
Sunday pilgrimage to church.
Roman, David and I spend the hot afternoon in my room with the windows
wide open, a slight breeze blowing the delicate lace curtains reviewing
the web site and discussing Romans research goals that are primarily focused
upon wolf management .We plan the weeks excursions into the countryside
and David struggles with communications problems that seem to be beyond
our control at this moment. We are all disappointed that our first log
entry could not be entered today but we hope that tomorrow will bring
relief to the heat and a solution to the mysteries of technology. Our
morning plan is to hike Tarnica, the highest peak in the range that will
hold magnificent views of the Bieszczady region and vistas deep into the
Ukraine and Slovakia. R.K
Monday, July 16 Research Station Ustrzyki Dolne, Poland
We were both up at dawn, perhaps with some personal trepidation about the coming day. Nevertheless, anxious to be on our way. We travel south, passing through small rural villages that seem to have been trapped in another century. Czarna, then the village of Lutowiska, where in this beautiful valley, the Jews were all killed one afternoon in the local playground . I once hiked to a group of hillside trees in this place to uncover the fragments of the Jewish cemetary. Today, in the morning heat we pass the silent hilltop. A testament to the violence and death that permeated this beautiful countryside only 60 years ago.
Then finally we enter the official boundary of the Bieszczady National Park. All the while, driving closer and closer to the border between Poland and the Ukraine. Roe deer cross the road and disappear quickly in the underbrush. A golden eagle is perched on a fence post, then flying low over the ground for its elusive prey. Its wingspan, magnificent.
In the heat of the morning we begin our trek up Tarnica Peak, the highest place in the Bieszczady Range at 1,350m.Once we enter the coolness of the alder forest the hike begins to settle into a pace. Roman far ahead. He turns 35 tomorrow and hiking these mountains is a part of his life and research. Nine years ago he took me up this mountain to show me a brown bear den that he was observing. We crawled into the empty rock den and noticed the scratch marks of the bear’s claws on nearby trees. Soon the forest opens and we are in a beech stand where old trees seem to braid themselves as they grow. Then fir before the forest line is below us and we are hiking in a windblown mountain meadow.
We arrive at the peak in about 3 hours. At times, each step is slow and calculated. Both David and I stop often to admire the view below, rest our legs and catch a breath. In a march of solitary thought and dreams we each make it to the top . On the highest summit there is erected a stainless steel cross to commemorate the visit to this mountaintop by Pope John Paul II, who hiked here as a young man. We are all in a trance as we absorb the view. Mountain ranges are spread out in a panoramic layering, extending deep into the Ukraine, Slovakia and the Polish Bieszczady. The wind cools our faces. We eat lunch, drink our water and not for a moment do we take our eyes off the great depth of beauty and wilderness before us.
I think that both David and I feel the vast distance between this mountaintop and our families and friends back in Maine. We know that we are probably the only Americans on this summit today. We feel privileged to have been able to make time in our lives to discover this path, and to feel on our faces the wind that sweeps across this remote mountaintop.
We have spent about two hours on the summit before we slowly begin the journey back into the valley. A viper slithers across the trail and the afternoon sun is baking the valley. We are burnt, thirsty and soak in our sweat. We drive a winding road through the park and find a local ice cream shop to wash away the dust from our faces and quench our thirst.
Tuesday, July 17 Research Station Ustrzyki Dolne, Poland
We meet briefly this morning with Dr. Kajetan Perzanowski, head of the Carpathian Branch of ICE PAS. He warmly greets us and we talk about our proximity to the Ukrainian border (about 7 km). While we are talking our passports are requested by the research station administrator who registers them. We are advised to keep them with us at all times because passport checks are made frequently in this region to catch illegal immigration. People from as far away as Vietnam use the route through the Ukraine to reach Western Europe.
We then discuss wild boar and Dr. Perzanowski suggests that we arrange with the local forester a night’s stay in a " high seat" or killing stand. This may provide us with the unique chance to hear wolves and perhaps see wild boar, which grow to 500lbs. And if we are lucky a brown bear. They forage the fields in late evening and early morning. The " stands" are situated in remote areas of the mountains and are used by hunters. We are looking forward to this opportunity and arrangements are being made.
In late afternoon we drive west on a mountain road built by the communist regime to a resort on the Solina Lake. This resort was built by the Polish Army and is now open for the public. We see the lake that was built by the communists in the 1960’s. There is a massive dam at Solina and numerous villages were flooded in the creation of this artificial lake.
On the road the Polish border police hail down the car driving in front of us to check for illegal immigration. Poland is now the frontier for NATO and the former communist block countries. Its eastern border has now taken on a greater significance in global politics.
Fierce storms are moving through Poland today. Five people were killed by falling trees in central Poland and the storm is moving east into our region. We may be off line for a day if the storm moves directly into our area. But we will be safe in the research station.
Tonight, we will celebrate Roman’s 35th birthday at a local restaurant.
David's First Chance to Log
Tuesday July 17, 2001
From a technology standpoint there are things we expected, both good and
bad, and the unexpected, which has been also both good and bad. I fully
expected that the telephones would work in a city with the size and population
of Krakow, and was disappointed to the point of frustration when I could
not even reach my family to advise them that I had arrived safely in the
city after a nine hour transatlantic flight and and a seven hour drive
through the heartland of Poland in 85 degree heat and 95 percent humidity.
I did not expect telephone service to be widely available in the country
side, and was very surprised to see many high school aged people using
cell phones, even here in the village of Ustrzsyki Dolne.
However, when we learned of the billing method used by the phone company, it became clear why so many people have cell phones. When cell phone technology first became available here in Poland it was offered by the State phone company and was very expensive, around 2500 zloty just for the hardware, an additional monthly charge for the service, and a per minute usage charge. Competition arrived in the form of a consortium. Cellphones are now practically given away and the cost of the service is within the reach of the average worker. It’s gotten to the point where a cell phone is cheaper than a hard wired home phone, especially since the wired telephone is still being billed on a per minute basis, even for local calls.
Now, we assumed that we would make use of the internet connection at the research facility, which has one, single-user modem connection running at 38100bps. The system will soon be upgraded to a multiple user configuration known as SDI, which will feature a communications connection at around 128K. This is the system used by many of the Internet Cafes around the country , because it is fairly easy to install and inexpensive to maintain. We planned to rely upon the 38K modem connection, and hoped that the installation of SDI would take place before we arrived, or more interestingly that we would be able to watch or participate in the setup. For various reasons the installation of the SDI system at the facility has been delayed until late August. It became apparent immediately that the per minute charges for the wired telephone service would put the modem use out of the constraints of our very limited budget. Our fallback position, the Internet Café, had just become our primary communications medium.
The Inernet Café in Ustrzyki Dolne is a short walk from the research facility and situated in what can only be described as the cellar of the local ice cream parlor. The entrance is around the corner, and you had better duck to avoid bumping your head on the concrete support above. Eight or nine steps down, the Café is reminiscent in size and atmosphere of the bedroom of a typical American teenager. Two old Bally pinball machines stand by idly in the corner, replaced by the Nintendo sitting across from them. A small desk with a clock, a sign advising the usage rates and an old Pentium playing European techno MP3s. Around the corner sit four fairly recent Windows based computers. We arrive at around 7:30PM Saturday night. Two girls watch three young men engrossed in combat; Quake III Arena. Could easily be Devin’s room or Drew’s room or any other from my high school back home. Roman interprets for us and we are assigned a computer.
Using Explorer, we are able to connect relatively quickly to the Wolf Project Site (compared to Krakow!). Email takes a bit longer. Eventually, I connect to the Chat page, click to enter the ChatRoom and immediately Shockwave begins to download and install. A few moments later I am fully connected to the Chat Server. I’m impressed. We all check our mail and decide to get dinner.
We return to the Café later with the G4 laptop. The image files, especially the video files we plan to upload daily, are very large. Designing them to fit onto a floppy disc will limit their duration and resolution, and compressing will destroy much of the quality, so ultimately we need a direct connection. We were so relieved to have connected with home that we neglected to ask whether the connection was modem or otherwise, so my first concern is that the European dial tone will be of a frequency not understandable by the Mac. Second, all of the menus and dialogue boxes are in Polish; if not a modem connection, will we be able to get IP addresses, etc.? Roman eases those fears; he is very comfortable with networking. But upon inspection we learn that the cafe has the new SDI system, which uses a BNC connector instead of the RJ-45 or RJ-11 standard for Ethernet and Modem. No one has any idea where, or even if we can get a converter. We decide to drive into Lesko on Monday to see about a connection adaptor.
On Sunday we hike the mountains to check the traps and shoot some video. Nothing will be open in Lesko, and we are not even sure that a connector is available, so I decide to compress a very short clip, put it on a floppy and trudge down to the café to check upload speed, and later download speed and quality. But when we try to use the machines to check our email, we get error msgs, and cannot connect to either server. We try for hours, and finally give up. I try to work through the potential reasons, time of day seems to be the most obvious culprit. There are limited connections available and at this time of day everyone everywhere is using the Internet. But we are able to connect to CNN and other sites in the US and even some in Maine, including the University. We seem to be locked out of the OHCHS servers! I call home to see if my wife can connect. No problem with either the WebSite or the Email servers. I return to the café to check histories on the machines we used, and the only conclusion I can come to is that the download of the Shockwave plug-in somehow led to our denial of access out of Uztrsyki. Bob doesn’t buy this explanation, and it is in fact, only speculation on my part, since we really have no way to determine the cause immediately, with certainty. We are both very frustrated!!
On Monday we hike Bieszczady and get fantastic footage. (And a fairly decent sunburn!) On the way back to Ustrsyki we stop in the larger city of Lesko. After some investigation we locate another Internet Café. This one has 16 new Pentiums and we are fortunate enough to have arrived just as the owner returns from lunch. As Roman explains our situation to the owner, the young man who runs the place assists Bob and I with connecting. I had the PC formatted floppy disc containing the two files we had prepared so far; the hiking footage as a QuickTime movie created with Final Cut Pro on the G4 laptop and compressed with MediaCleaner, and the Progress Log in html created with DreamWeaver. Eventually, we managed to mount the floppy, connect to the PolandWolfProject Server, and ftp the two files using their Master machine running Windows Commander under Red Hat Linux.
Now the plan is to get a movie with a higher resolution and of higher quality onto the site.
Wednesday, July 18 Research Station Ustrzyki Dolne, Poland
It rained last night as we sat under the umbrella at our favorite Pizza café in Ustrzyki Dolne. It was Roman’s birthday and we had a few rounds of cokes and beers. Kajetan told us about his search for a broader gene pool for the European bison herd that are in these mountains.Five bison will be brought in from Sweden and Denmark in the fall. We also discussed the problems that have been brought on since 1997 by the ban on wolf hunting. A reduction in the red deer herd and wild boar may increase the killing of livestock. In addition, a mild winter made it more difficult for wolves to hunt deer. He estimates that 150 – 200 sheep were killed by wolves in the year 2000. Despite the ban, approximately 30 percent of the wolves are poached. It is a complicated issue that involves regional traditions, politics, science and economics.
We walked the dark streets back to the research station. The night in Ustrzyki Dolne seems safe. We are told that despite the 24 percent unemployment in the village, crime is minimal. The last car stolen off the streets happened about 7 years ago. They remember a crime reported by a woman informing police that her basement window was smashed in and a jar of pickles stolen. Her drunken husband was the culprit. I sleep well as the weather front clears out the African air that has heated up the mountains since our arrival. The large, black and white stalks that we see on our road trips, make enormous nests on chimneys and poles. They migrate to Africa each winter.
By 4 A.M., the strong breeze and cool air awakes me. I stand by the open window. Low clouds hang over the mountains and I stare down at the empty, silent street below. Each night before I fall asleep I read a chapter of Jan Gross’s recently published book called, Neighbors. It is a chilling account of the destruction of the Jewish community in the village of Jebwabne, in the northeast part of Poland. On a July day in 1941, half of the people in the town brutally murdered the other half. 1,600 men, woman and children perished. They were drowned, beaten, stabbed, buried and burnt alive by their neighbors simply because they were Jews. I stare into the empty street of this village and I know that in 1942 about 1,000 of the Jews of this town were shot in the street not far from the research station. The old synagogue still stands and the Jewish cemetery is nearby. Roman tells us of assisting a man this winter in removing headstones from the streets where the Nazis placed them and hauling the massive stone with horses to the cemetery hill. In all of the villages that we pass on our journeys through the mountains, the Jews were massacred. In Czarna, 120 killed. In Baligrod, where we were today, 1200 Jews were transported to death camps. In Cisna, the cemetery and synagogue destroyed. In Lutowiska, Rymanow and Lesko the story is the same. Total annihilation. The morning silence is deceiving and conceals terrible secrets.
I leave for the trap line with a wildlife biologist from England who is doing his studies about European bison.Since April he has been observing the bison that are the largest mammals in the mountains. Despite their size they seem to allude him and he has collected minimal data. As we check the traps for Roman we come across bison prints in the mud. No wolves were caught this morning but valuable information discovered about the movement of the bison herd.
As soon as we arrive back at the research station covered in mud, Roman notifies us of important news. The lull in wolf activity because of the intense heat has come to an end. There are reports of three sheep throughout the mountains killed last night by wolves. A quick shower, cup of mocha and we are off. First picking up a veterinarian who works for the government and who will determine by a field autopsy the cause of death. We drop David off at an Internet Cafe in Lesko so he can work on updating the web site and we are driving through the rain.
The first farmer hails us down and he walks us through his sheep pasture. On the rusted hull of a car is the dead and bloodied carcass. Roman carefully inspects and determines another predator may have killed his sheep, but not a wolf. We walk past his growling sheep dogs and enter his wooden hut. A fire burns in a pit in the floor; the smoke consumes the small room and makes it difficult to breathe. He is making sacks of sheep cheese and offers us a thick, warm, white drink. He lives with no obvious connection to this century.
The veterinarian is anxious to leave and urges us to take him to the village of Barwinek which is the border crossing into Slovakia. Approaching the border, hundreds of cars are waiting in line to cross. We park our car and cautiously walk to the passport control point. Our passports are scrutinized and we are allowed to enter Slovakia. We are quickly ussered into a dilapidated bus and driven about a mile down the road to a store that is stocked from the floor to ceiling with liquor. The vet buys his cheap vodka and we are back on the bus to the border crossing.
Now we are on the road again and Roman is getting weary. We arrive at another farm where we are told that two sheep have been attacked. One carcass is so decomposed that they can not make an accurate determination. But then we hike up a very muddy, slippery hill where there is a large pasture. The farmer and Roman separate the flock and chase down an injured sheep. His wounds are obviously from a wolf attack. One leg is bitten through to the bone and there is blood around his neck. The sheep has miraculously survived and Roman offers the farmer medication.
We pick up David late in the afternoon an drive to the third farm. Here a man staggers out of his dilapidated farmhouse and leads us on a long trek through thick underbrush, over electrified fences to a hillside pasture. The farmer is Greek.His parents were Greek communists who came to this region in a political migration after the war.The sheep is bloated and tied to a tree by a leg so the carcass would not be carried off. His neck is ripped open. There is no hesitation by Roman to conclude that this was a wolf kill. The carcass was not eaten because the farmer and his mountain sheep dogs chased off the wolf. The farmer is perturbed and claims that he has had 150 sheep killed by wolves.We photograph the dead sheep from all angles. Back at the farmhouse, while the farmer, the vet and Roman argue about reimbursement, we photograph his flock of sheep and goats.
We are all weary after a long day and find an empty restaurant in town for a cool Polish beer called Zywiec and a good meal. We have decided that tomorrow we will stay out of the forests and we plan to take a train to Slovakia and visit the home village of the late American pop artist Andy Warhol. R.K.
Thusday, July 19 Research Station Ustrzyki Dolne, Poland
By 6 AM I was out in search of a public phone to call home. People were slowly making their way to their morning chores and the streets were clean and quiet. There was coolness in the air and clear skies.
We left the village before nine to catch the train in the village of Zagorz. An unmarked police car hails Roman down for allegedly driving to fast. But Roman challenges the policeman’s observations and accuses the policeman of driving recklessly. We are sent on our way without a fine. We are soon boarding a well worn diesel train to Slovakia. Roman warns us about Gypsy thieves and we are all somewhat nervous.
We are riding through the Carpathian Mountains and observing the rural landscape of Poland. It will soon all change in subtle ways. Across the border we will begin to feel a Balkan influence. There are differences. In Poland there are vast empty tracks of land and small rural settlements in the mountains. In Slovakia most people tend to live in villages. In Poland there is only selective cutting of timber in the mountains but across the border there are clear cuts. We notice differences in the crops grown in gardens. Especially the presence of grapes in the south. Even the insects are different.
Before we arrive at the border, the train comes to a screeching stop.
Our tickets are stamped and our passports are checked, taken from us and
returned after numerous unsettled moments. The train proceeds and enters
a tunnel cut into the mountains. We are
in total blackness. At the end of the tunnel is Slovakia, still bearing
the weight and burden of the communist legacy. Our passports are stamped
once again and we slowly proceed to the village of Miedzylaborce.
My first observation upon pulling into the station is the dark skinned gypsies. They are descendents of a 13th century migration of people from India and have populated and established their unique culture in many of the east European countries. Unfortunately, we were warned about thieves and we hold our cameras tightly. This village is not on any important route and so it seems there is little economic development or growth. There is a monument to the communists in the middle of town. All the buildings seem to be crumbling and it is a clear reminder of communist economic and social policies that dominated this region for 50 years.
Ironically, in the center of this village is an odd shaped museum built to the legacy of American Pop artist, Andy Warhol. Although, he was born in America, his parents came from this region. It of course makes no sense to see two large Campbell soup cans in the middle of Miedzylaborce. The exhibition is a strange assortment of artworks interspersed with articles of cloths, family photos and dying plants. We have to put protective socks around our shoes before entering like it is a holy shrine. The museum of course is empty and we saw no one approach the building all day. Across the street is an imposing Greek Orthodox Church built by the communists but the architectural design of the church is not appropriate to the region. There is nothing left to do in the town and we have nearly 4 hours left before the train returns to Poland.
After much searching we find a restaurant and spend the afternoon drinking beer and having a remarkably decent meal. Two women in long black dresses sit at the bar and we suspect they are working in" the oldest profession". But business seems slow for them today. They seem bored and Roman wonders why they are not at home " cleaning their houses or reading ". We leave them sitting at the bar as we leave for the train station.
It is a long ride back to Poland. Again we are stopped at the border for passport inspection. David is ordered by a guard to erase a portion of the video that he filmed as we crossed the border. None of us understands the motivation for this order but he obliges. The border guards seem to have no sense of humor and it is best to obey without an argument.
During the two hour train ride, I hang out the window and watch the countryside race by. We begin discussions with Roman. He explains how fully half of the bison herd in the Bieszczady has contracted Tuberculosis from the cattle in the government run farms of the 1960’s. Some of the bison have been killed and the herd has been isolated but no final solution to the problem has been agreed upon. Also, about 8 years ago, the wild boars contracted Cholera.
We arrive back at the research station. Gypsies thieves did not accost
us in Slovakia and it was a memorable day as we crossed European borders
deep in the Carpathians . Tomorrow we plan to return to the mountains
and spend the night observing wildlife.
R.K.
Friday, July 20 Research Station Ustrzyki Dolne, Poland
The 19th century Polish novelist, Zygmunt Kaczkowski wrote about his journey into the Bieszczady Mountains, " Only when we had reached the summit did twilight set in. To the east, on our right, the stars had already been extinguished, but on the far west those celestial bodies still flickered here and there. All at once we felt as if we were suspended in the air, for mists concealed all the mountains around us; the ground was not to be seen; only the sky and the graying air were visible… We all sensed the same illusion, that we were the souls of men who had left their bodies and flown up over the earth…Along with the ( morning ) light of the sun, from the gray world of ghosts in which our imaginations had held us for a while, we came again back to earth, which now manifested herself in all of her spelendour."
For David, Roman and I we have just returned from a night journey that has allowed us to experience the illusions of our imagination as we ascend a mountain trail to spend the night hours in a " high seat " observing the spectacle of predator and prey.
It is evening when we begin the trek. Roman drives the Fiat across back roads, following a hand drawn map given to him by the local forester. He is unfamiliar with these roads so we drive, slowly and with caution looking for the trail. We stop in a small village still enveloped in a past era. The trail begins and we walk through farms that seem so untouched by the world that is familiar to us. We pass " root cellars " cut into the earth generations ago for cold storage. Cows and horses graze casually in front yards with farmers wearing leather skins, smoking and following our movements as we pass. We walk quickly as dogs begin to bark and I hear the muffled sounds of animals hidden behind close doors of century old barns.
The trail becomes steeper and we stop to pick raspberries. I look down at my feet and I see a wolf print deeply embedded in the mud. As we move further under the canopy of the forest the world darkens. Upturned dirt along the path indicates wild boar activity as they up root the earth in search of food.
At last we enter a field freshly hayed and then once again we move into the damp forest. There is a strong presence here of the predator, as more wolf tracks become evident. We have been walking up a steep trail for about thirty minutes and I feel the sweat dripping down my back as we carry our packs filled with water and food for a long night excursion. We leave the dark woods and a high mountain meadow is before us. In one corner, by a stand of beech trees a " high seat ".
It reaches about 25’ above the ground, built of sturdy timbers. It is covered in ivy as if an ancient monument. We carefully climb the slippery ladder to the high platform. There is a narrow deck and an enclosure about 5’ high. Inside it is dark. There is really only room for two. But there are three of us that will have to squeeze in for the night. A small window overlooks the field below and to the distant forest and mountains. Here hunters have sat and waited the long hours. Their rifles ready for the prey that will wander into the field below. An old, stained mattress on a platform next to the window is a testament to their traditional ritual.
David and Roman are perched outside on the deck. I sit inside by the window. I am mesmerized by the view and of the silence. Knowing all to well that in the dark forests the predator/ prey relationship will unfold tonight as it has from the beginning of the natural world. Perhaps, tonight we will be witnesses to this spectacle.
As I stare out I become more aware of the privilege to be in this place. A wilderness, where there is no reference to the time and space from which we have traveled. My thoughts wander to the 19th century naturalist, Henry David Thoreau. He must have spent nights in his cabin, not much larger than our enclosure, staring out into his American wilderness. From his cabin, built on a gentle hillside, under the protective forest on the shoreline of Walden Pond, he became an observer of the natural environment. Before I came on this trip to Poland, I visited his pond and stared out into his world. Today an isolated refuge held prisoner to development.
As the last light of the day disappears a roe deer wanders into the meadow, unaware of our presence. Like a ballerina, it’s delicate legs allows him to move in absolute silence as he casually grazes.He crosses the field and there is emptiness as darkness descends. But then we hear rustling of brush and a magnificent stag emerges from the darkness. Our eyes strain to follow his silhouette. He is cautious. Always looking up as if he knows that the wolves are in pursuit. For thirty minutes we watch his splendid form move through the field. Then, as if he senses danger, he moves quickly back into the forest.
We are all now squeezed into the shelter. Darkness has descended upon our world. The mosquitoes have mysteriously disappeared and in the distance we begin to hear the rumble of thunder. This is what we have feared. It is now too dark to hike back down from the mountain, so we can only hope that the storm will pass to the east of us. Soon we hear the wind blowing the tops of the trees and dark, ominous clouds appear overhead. The thunder moves in. Threatening bursts , sounds like a freight train moving closer and closer. We should not be in a "high stand " on a mountaintop in such a storm. But we now must sit it out. This must feel like being in a ship at sea about to be consumed by the threatening force of a gale. The only thing to do, is stay calm and wait it through. No longer are we in control of our fate.
The storm is upon this mountaintop! Bolts of lightning shatter the darkness. Each strike lights up the field like a million spotlights. The rain pounds the roof of our shelter. Roman and I play a game of chess by the glow of his light that is attached to band that he wears around his head. David is on the platform trying to capture the spectacle on video. We try to ignore the crashing outside. Eventually the storm moves on. Roman lays down on the floor to try to sleep and David and I crawl up on the platform. It is too hard and uncomfortable for sleep.
In a quiet voice, Roman begins to tell us about his research in the primeval forest called Bialowieska. Here he had the opportunity to have many encounters with wolves. Along with his colleagues, they were able to collar many wolves and follow their movements with the use of telemetry. He tells us of watching the wolf pack run across a field near a village. From his voice, we can detect his passion for his work and his admiration for the wolves and bears that he has studied in the field.
By 1 am, there is total blackness. The clouds hide the light of the moon and I lay awake trying to ignore my aching bones. I think that I can hear a lone wolf howling on a distant mountain ridge.
I must have fallen into a brief sleep. Because when I awake , I remember being surrounded in a field by a pack of wolves. One was very large and dark. I remember the film with Oliver Reed as a Canadian trapper being surrounded by threatening wolves as he checks his trap line. But unlike the movie, these wolves were playful and intended me no harm.But I wake and immediately realize that this was all an illusion, " … the world of ghosts in which our imagination had held for us…" Now I am again " back to earth " and the wolves below the " high seat" fortunately remain hidden in the darkness of night.
4 am and we are all awake and begin to pack up our things. We carefully climb down from our perch and begin the slippery walk down from the high meadow. As we stop for berries we see a red deer and a fox in a field. Soon the deer begins to run and it meets up with another, and they gracefully leap over fences to disappear from our view. Mist rises from the valley below and we re-enter the sleeping village. The dogs begin to bark as they detect our presence and the roosters begin to sing.
We have spent the night in a world in which the thunder and the wolves makes us realize that we were only evening guests in the crest of this mountain. " Our imagination had held us for a while…" but now we must move again back to earth. Our bodies can barely squeeze into Roman’s Fiat and we begin the silent journey to the research station. We are all tired, wet and hungry. But for this night in our lives, "… we felt as if we were suspended in the air..’ We were those souls of men who had left their bodies and flown up over the earth. R.K.
Saturday, July 21 Research Station Ustrzyki Dolne, Poland
Yesterday we all rested from our night in the " high seat". Towards evening we drive southwest into the park where Kajetan has built himself a log home near the village of Wola Michowa. Here he now vacations with his family. Joining us is a zoology student from Germany who will spend a few weeks at the research station assisting Roman analyze wolf scat samples.
Kajetan's home is located on a vast high meadow bordered by endless vistas of the mountains. Often his family can see wolves crossing the fields and of course grazing red and roe deer. Before we arrive at his home for dinner we visit the nearby enclosure that will be used for the bison that are being brought in from Norway and Denmark this fall.
The bison will stay in this enclosure for a quarantine period and then be released into the heard to increase the diversity of their gene pool. He explains to me that in total about 15 bison have contracted tuberculosis and this herd is isolated and these bison are being killed. But because of the very illusive grazing habits of the bison, culling this herd is a difficult process. The new bison that will be introduced will all have radio collars for more efficient tracking.
We enjoy the hospitality of his family and he cooks for us a delicious
traditional meal of grilled sausage and salad. There is also an ample
supply of Slovakian and Polish beer. Before we leave his home, he insists
that we toast our visit with a shot of Polish vodka. We all drink, except
for our driver, Roman. It is a long and dark ride home through the mountains
and we all fall asleep.
David and I sleep later than usual on Sunday morning and we begin to stir
around 8 AM. There is a heavy rain outside and we sit by the window with
cups of Polish Cappuccino and play a long game of chess. We discuss the
future of our project and the many options available as we gain a better
understanding of the technology. I think that we are both anxious to get
back to Maine to share with our colleagues the information that we have
gathered. The rain has now passed and we begin to prepare for this afternoons
hike which will be along the Ukrainian border in the San River valley.
At around 8 PM, we plan to join up with the English biologist and observe
a high mountain pasture which in the Biezczady are known as the "
poloniny", where a herd of bison is known to frequent. We hope to
get video footage of the bison.
Life for David and I at the research station has taken on an efficient routine. Our apartment consists of two bedrooms that can sleep up to five people, a kitchen and bathroom all on the fourth floor. We have a splendid view of the mountains and the village’s tree lined streets. We usually plan the day’s activity after a visit from Roman and a check of weather conditions. Breakfast for us is simple. A hot cup of mocha or coffee and breakfast treats that we brought from home. We have both discovered that a Polish version of instant soup is our mainstay for lunch if we are not in the field. We eat our dinners at a local restaurant or the Pizza café. The food is good and very cheap compared to American standards for an evening dinner.
At the station we have shared the utilitarian chores of washing our few dishes and keeping the place orderly. We buy our provisions at a local market. Nearly everyday one of us is washing laundry by hand in the sink. So cloths are usually hanging in each room as they dry during the day. We try to wash the caked mud from our boots at an outdoor faucet before bringing them into the station. We of course have no telephone, TV or radio so we feel totally cut of from world events. Our accommodations are pleasant and efficient and we have easily found our routine. R.K.
Sunday, July 22 Research Station Ustrzyki Dolne Poland
Under threatening skies we meet downstairs to begin our trip to the most southeastern place in Poland. Our caravan on this Sunday afternoon consists of two Fiats. In the red one, Duncan (the English biologist from Leeds) will drive with three of his students. In the white Fiat, Roman, David and I squeeze in with our packs. We drive through familiar villages; Czarna Gorna, and then down into the picturesque valley where Lutowiska is hidden deep in the shadows of a ravine. This small village was founded before 1580. During the War, Lutowiska was first occupied by the Soviets and then in June of 1941, by the Germans. On June 22, the extermination of the Jews took place. As we pass through, I can not help but glance over to the old school yard where the Jewish children were rounded up and in the nearby field where all of the Jewish citizens of this community were shot. Only a 17 year old boy, Blima Meyer managed to escape the massacre. The wooden synagogue was burnt to the ground. This is the tragic scenario for nearly all of the villages in this region. As my thoughts wander to those events; heavy, dark clouds descend over the valley like a black veil racing across the mountaintops. From the forest floor, walls of mist rise up like the smoke from a hundred wildfires to meet the clouds. The skies open and we are caught in a deluge of heavy rains.
It is nearly impossible to see beyond our windshield. The roads begin
to flood in places; racing rivers of rainwater conceal large potholes
in the road making them difficult to avoid. At a juncture, both vehicles
come to a stop and we debate the wisdom of proceeding further into the
Bieszczady. However, we continue on, cautiously following each other down
the washed out roads.
As the road narrows, we pass through remote villages named Muczne, Tarnawa
Nizna and Beniowa. We are deep in the San River valley where just beyond
the fast flowing, muddy river, rise the heavily forested evergreen slopes
of the Ukraine. Finally, the red Fiat comes to a stop on a narrow dirt
path and we stretch our cramped legs and look out at the vast vista of
this impressive valley. The rain has stopped and the skies brighten.We
have reached the frontier between Poland and the former Soviet Union.
To our left, we can now clearly see the boundary between these two lands. On the Polish side, yellow signs warn people not to proceed any closer. On the Ukrainian side, a fence has been erected that runs from the Black Sea to Finland with sentry towers every few meters. A silent testament to the political conflict and upheaval that engulfed this region for over 50 years after World War 2. The fence also creates an artificial barrier that inhibits animal migrations in this mountain range. Although, Roman is convinced that wolves and bears have found a way through the fence from evidence of carcasses that he has managed to examine. Our late afternoon hike begins.
As we walk parallel to the border we hear a train that travels on the Ukrainian side. Two locomotives pull the endless parade of what looks like coal cars. The train is moving to the Ukrainian town of Uzhorod, and has passed through Lvov, connecting two important Carpathian cities. We leave the path and the distant rumble of the locomotives and enter a narrow trail in the forest. The brush soon is waist high and our pants are quickly soaked. We come across a concrete, red and white marker about 6’ high. To the left, is the raging San River and on the other side a similar blue concrete marker. We are now just a few feet away from the Ukraine. Easy stones throw. We stop for photos. We are a hiking party of six; from Poland, England and America and we wonder if we are being spied upon. Some of us contemplate the consequence of walking across a fallen log into this well guarded mysterious country. Our wisdom prevails, and we just spend time thinking about the significance of this place and how close we have come to the border of this historic frontier.
As our trek continues we notice more and more logging activity and neatly stacked rows of timber that is being prepared for the charcoal burners that are scattered throughout the mountains. At the end of the path we finally come across the last dwelling in Poland. Beyond, the path will just end in the forest and one nation will blend into another in the heavily forested landscape. We stop to explore an abandoned cemetery from one of the numerous Ukrainian villages that once occupied this region of the Bieszczady. Here too, were significant rural Jewish settlements called " shtetls ", as well as the villages of Catholic Poles. Between the ravages of the Second World War and the Ukrainian uprising in the late 1940’s, nearly all of these villages were burnt to the ground and the region de-populated. Throughout this valley are hidden secrets, ghosts of vanished communities, well-hidden foundations of Orthodox churches, wooden synagogues and homes. Today, an untrained eye will only see the forest, mountains and high meadows. But with careful scrutiny the past souls of these razed communities comes rushing into our imaginations.
Roman stops to forage for wild raspberries and we all take a rest. Rain clouds are now moving back over the mountains so we begin to walk back to where the Fiats are parked. Hiking across a vast meadow filled with giant Queen Ann’s Lace and other mountain flowers someone stops to point out wolf tracks. Roman finds a pile of wolf scat. It is closely examined and he determines that its contents indicate that the wolf had consumed a wild boar. The scat is collected and will be brought back to the research station. There it will be dried and carefully analyzed along with all of the other scat samples that has been collected throughout the winter. This is an important study to help determine predator/prey relationships.
During the hike we have had long discussions with our British friends and they now lead us up to a high overlook where they have been observing the movement of a bison herd during the past few weeks. From this vantage point they have observed 29 bison including 4 calves and 1 large male. They have also come across large bear prints and are weary about wandering to far from the site. We spend the next few hours searching the distant landscape where the high forest meets the meadow. Directly below our location is a ravine and the site of a razed village. Then the broad meadow opens and meets the tree line. From the distant dark forest wall the bison sometimes emerge like giant shadows to graze in the open. But on this evening, the rain now begins and a shroud of mist slowly descends upon the distant tree line concealing any hopes of spying the bison. We scan the horizon with binoculars and at about 8; 30, as darkness descends upon the San River valley we begin our long trek home.
As we are driving out of the valley, a stag appears on a hilltop. It’s beautiful antlers still covered in velvet. It turns to momentarily star at our noisy caravan, and then turns east, vanishing into the heavy blanket of evening mist. Roman explains to us the significance of DNA analysis for his research. He tries to illustrate for us the complex structure of DNA and how this work will assist his understanding of kinship relationships between individual wolves and packs. He hopes that we will have time to visit the lab in Warsaw where some of this analysis is taking place.
We arrive back at Ustrzyki Dolne about 9 PM and drive directly to the Pizza café. We have not eaten all day. We are all tired and hungry. R.K.
Monday, July 23 Research Station Ustrzyki Dolne Poland
Early evening and heavy rain and thunder outside. Our apartment in the research station is beginning to feel like home. Maybe that means we’ve been here to long.
We have no field expeditions planned for the day. David will be at the computer, editing video. I have morning chores. After my walk through town I look out the window. Down below I notice two cats curled up in a tight ball of fur, lying in the high grass. Nearby, and apparently not disturbing their deep sleep are two elderly me who have stopped their chores for a smoke. Their shirts are stained with sweat as they pause from cutting the tall grass that surrounds the research station with a scythe, an ancient tool used for generations in rural Poland.
In the nearby apartment buildings, women emerge onto their balconies to hang out their delicate lace curtains and bedding to dry in the morning air. The streets below are full of people, many stopping for a morning " lody" ( ice cream ). In the women’s clothing store I notice that each day the window display changes. New dresses, night gowns, under garments and bathing suits are always displayed in matching color schemes. One day it may be bright yellow, orange and today it is light blue.
On the main street where I walked this morning to use the telephone I pass a wall with graffiti. It depicts a gallow with the " Star of David " tangling from the end of a rope. It is a disturbing reminder of anti-Semitism and the recent history of this village and others throughout Poland. Not far from this spot, in the nearby park, Jewish headstones still lay buried beneath the street. Nearly, 1,000 Jews were shot in these streets and in the nearby forest of Brzegi Dolne. I walk past the graffiti wall and notice two goats grazing by a swollen creek. Everywhere I walk I can see the mountain pastures (the poloniny ) and the thick beech and alder forests.
Back at the research station the smell of thawing and drying wolf scat permeates the building. Roman and his German assistant have begun the process of scat analysis. I make myself some soup and David remains engrossed with his editing process. My mud encrusted boots sit on the windowsill to dry and I listen to the now familiar Polish words drifting up from the children playing under the Chestnut trees in the steet below my window.
I am in a deep afternoon sleep when there is a bang on our door. For a moment I can not distinguish the thud from the crashing thunder outside. David is also startled. Duncan comes in excited to report that on his morning hike to observe bison, his team heard a loud growl from some nearby underbrush. They assume that they nearly had a very close encounter with a brown bear. He comes and gets me to take him to the hillside near the village of Lutowiska where there are the remnants of the old Jewish cemetery.
Once again the skies darken around this village and we see the lightening strike the surrounding hills. We pass grazing cows and a local farmer. Under a canopy of trees on this hill, lie the fragments of the gravestones. Many have crumbled as they pass through the centuries, others have been vandalized. There are elegant enrgravings of the local animals on the headstones including eagles and stags. We talk awhile about the tragic events of this village and history. He helps me gather small rocks to place on the headstones and I say a silent the " kaddish " the mourner’s prayer for the dead. By the time we walk down from the hill the daily rains have once again begun.
Roman has been called from his work to check upon two farmers who have reported their sheep killed by wolves. He reports to us that two young sheep were killed last evening by a wolf. The farmer disagrees with the compensation that is offered to him and will take his case to the court for arbitration. We meet for dinner and drive to Lesko to us the computers at a local Internet café.
Today Poland is a place still caught between two centuries. We drive to use computers to communicate with the world, passing cows staked to front yards, people hand cutting and stacking the hay in their fields and horse drawn carts slowly making their way down the country roads. Tomorrow will be our last day in the Bieszczady. R.K.
Tuesday July 24, 2001
David’s Second opportunity to Log
After much trial and error, and some very slow communications with home,
I have been able to get the entries onto the Progress Log page, as well
as a few more video clips uploaded to the Video page. The Café
at Lesko has the fastest possible Internet connection, and an Ethernet
Router instead of the SDI Modem system we found in Ustrzsyki. Most of
the customers in the café are young people playing online video
games, or exchanging messages with friends in other parts of the country.
I have spent many, many hours there this week. The owner seems to be genuinely
excited that we are maintaining our site from his facility.
Pulling the site together on an EtherNetwork with 16 other computers has
been a real challenge. It is impossible to determine the speed of the
next connection. I check my email and the connection seems to fly. Try
to upload a moment later and the system crawls. Attempting to plan in
this environment has been, to say the least, interesting. Bob’s frustration
with the technology runs deeper than my own. Maine has arguably one of
the most advanced telecommunications infrastructure in the US and the
University system is a direct beneficiary of this investment.
I had set high hopes based upon the information I could gather in the short time we had to prepare for this expedition, and given the limited resources at our disposal upon departure time. I had low expectations for those things that I could not get complete information on, and therefore knew I could not control. Anything that worked at all would have been a bonus!
I’m trying to shoot good video, edit it to support the Progress log and get it uploaded in good time. I’m using a Canon GL-1 to capture and transfer the video via FireWire for editing and compression on the G4 laptop. The G4 has battery power as does the GL-1, but they need to be plugged in to recharge. We had purchased a power converter so we could use the European standard 220v, and I brought along a power strip so I could use more than one device at the same time. The Power converter was defective and burned up the powerstrip immediately. Using the adaptor plug alone, I can still use one device at a time and the transformers in the battery chargers themselves seem to be able to handle the current. While I brought plenty of camera batteries for an all day shoot, without the converter they don’t seem to be charging to 100%, so power management is another time consuming issue I didn’t think I’d have to deal with.
I also need to spend some time with Roman to walk him through some of the software on the iMac. Bob uses Word on the iMac to type up all of the entries, which I then edit and convert to HTML using Dreamweaver, and finally transfer to the G4 using a crossover cable
As I explained in my last entry, I thought I would have unlimited access to the Internet. The internet café in Ustrzsyki opens at noon most days, the one in Lesko at 10AM. They both close at 10PM, relatively late for here. From 10-11AM the connections run pretty smoothly, but by noon the cafes are filled with users, and the connections slow to a crawl, especially if you want to get out of the country. They tend to speed up a bit from 4:00-5:00, then again slow to a crawl from suppertime through 9:15PM, when most of the teenagers apparently head home for 10. So my upload window seems to be between 10 and 11AM, 4-5PM and 9:15-10PM
Even then the connection doesn’t seem to be able to maintain a consistent speed with the very large files. The 1.6 Mb Tarnica Cross movie started out uploading at 17K/sec, but at one point slowed to 8 bytes/sec. When, at 9:15PM Wednesday, I had the entire connection to myself, it went at 38K/sec. By that time I had compressed it down to around 600K so it uploaded even more quickly.
Email using First Class through Netscape has also been very slow due to password confirmations and firewalls, and the various menus we must navigate through once we reach the server. The people contacting us are used to writing letters approaching 4, 5, 6K. Two or three of these tend to slow the download time considerably. If we needed to communicate this way for any period of time, I would suggest people send many short emails, rather than one large one, and of course, we should run the First Class software directly.
We set up the G4/400 running v. 1.2 of the Server Software a month before we left. We got the G4 laptop a week before leaving. We will be loaning Roman the iMac DVSE for the duration of the Project and got the ok to leave that in Poland only days before departure. Roman told us today that they have decided to go with a new Ethernet Hub connecting through the SDI modem, rather than the BNC connection scheme they had formerly planned. This should permit them to connect the iMac with no trouble whatsoever. He has ordered all of the necessary hardware and all of it but the SDI modem will be available for pickup on Monday. The modem comes from the State-owned Phone Company and this is apparently run by Lily Tomlin. ("We’re the Phone Company; we don’t have to be nice!")
We are very proud of what we have been able to accomplish on the shoestring budget. We will be leaving Ustrzsyki very early Wednesday morning for the 6-hour journey to Warsaw. Our flight leaves at 6AM Thursday for a connection at Frankfurt, with a planned arrival time at Boston of 1:10PM EDT. After taking August off, we will upload the remaining Video and update the wolf research as we get it from Roman. Hopefully, with their new connection in place, we will be able to set times for Chat beginning in late September, early October. If you are a science teacher in a high school reading this page, and would like to participate in the research project please contact me at: dpinkham@sad17.k12.me.us
Wednesday, July 25 Europejski Hotel Warsaw, Poland
Yesterday we arose to another day of rain. Dark clouds hung low over the mountains and we could barely make out the now familiar high meadows and peaks. This afternoon we arrived in Warsaw after a long drive out of the Bieszczady. We have had time to reflect upon our expedition into this part of the Carpathian Range. A narrative written by Zygmunt Haupt comes to mind as we depart;
" When you finally escaped from the familiar
and wandered away off the beaten track.
If you were to suddenly find yourself
in the middle of a wilderness free of all vestiges
of other people, where no man had been before,
you would come up face to face
with the hostile indifference of Nature.
You would feel out of this world;
you’d think that something had gone wrong
That you had suddenly turned up in that place."
The Bieszczady Mountains of Poland has endured a complex history of foreign
occupation, political strife, wars, social change, population shifts and
a diverse agricultural heritage that has brought it into this 21st century.
Age old traditions of hunting, farming, forestry, grazing and village
life are still sustained in the subsistence lifestyle of this remote region.
The Bieszczady today also remains a border frontier between the legacy
of the Cold War period. It is almost impossible to travel in this region
without passing near an international border and seeing the distant mountains
of neighboring nations.
The region that we have explored encompasses about 2000 sq. km. As we have observed, this environment sustains a diverse range of human activity. Yet, at the very same time this mountainous landscape also encompasses one of the most complex and diverse wilderness areas found in Europe today. This natural habitat is the home to one of the densest populations of large mammals found in Europe. Including the presence of large predators such as the brown bear and wolf.
On every hike that we took into the forest or high meadows, or through a river valley, the presence of the wolf made us feel the uniqueness of this ecosystem. As we entered the world of the wolf, it’s elusiveness and silence concealed its physical presence to us. But during our hikes, we had the opportunity and privilege to witness and understand the wolf’s dominance in the natural process of prey/predator relationships as we viewed the evidence of natural prey and livestock depredation.
In an essay titled, Ecology and Cultural Diversity in the Evolution of Wolf-human Relationships, published by the Canadian Circumpolar Institute in 1995, Luigi Boitan states, " The history of wolf persecution and extermination in Europe and North America followed a pattern that did not match the availability of suitable habitat for the wolf or any ecological factor linked to human density…" He continues to explain that the extermination of wolves in Europe started in the third and fourth centuries BC and it became an well-organized activity by the time of the Middle Ages.
Boitani writes, " The Bible (Christianity), presents the perspective of people that lived in a hostile environment within a pasrtoralist economy; hence they had a negative attitude toward the wolves. In Christian symbolism, the wolf became more a symbol of human rapacity and deceit, of wantonness and excess, the animal ready to attack sheep, symbols of mildness, moderation and goodness." The ultimate success in maintaining a diverse wilderness ecosystem like the Bieszczady Mountain range will be to educate people to attain a comfortable level of social acceptance in understanding the wolf and an expulsion from our culture of inaccurate stereotypes.
Dr. Roman Gula concludes that the continued existence of wolves in these mountains will certainly depend upon the " quality of their natural environment", but also a re-evaluation of their " legal protection status and the compensation program to farmers". Also, the " limitation of the potential growth of the human presence and pressure upon the natural environment, as well as implementation of management practices". Public opinion will remain a critical part of any equation to sustain a wolf population in our definition of contemporary wilderness. It has been documented by wildlife research, that this is a far more problematic issue than any biological problem faced by the wolf itself. Boitani ends his essay by stating that " wolf-human conflicts are best resolved when both species " agree " on a certain amount of tolerance for the other’s rights. Wolves can find the " agreement " through a process of natural/artificial selection and learning; humans must be educated to increase their tolerance of the wolf". And," humans should learn to view the depredation by the wolf as one more cause of natural mortality".
In Poland’s Bieszczady Mountains, the structural process is being fabricated through scientific research and study to insure the sustainability of this fragile and delicate balance between the existence of the "wild" predator and the human presence. Enabling us to preserve a wilderness environment that truly has the vestiges of a " wild place " on earth.
After our last dinner together Roman takes us on a drive in the Fiat on a road that leads us northeast of Ustrzyki Dolne. Soon we turn off the main road and we follow an abandoned path along the Stebnik River into a valley. We pass a field in which a German village once stood until the end of the Second World War. The road narrows and the brush is now taller than the Fiat. It is like entering a tunnel into the forest. The skies darken. It is nearly 8 PM. We stop and Roman wants to call the wolves. He speculates that there is a den in the nearby hills. We wait awhile, but the wind picks up and it begins to rain. There is no chance of calling the wolves under such conditions. We are all disappointed and we pile back in the car and continue for many more kilometers. The road is flooded in places and lightening crackles on either side of us. It is nightfall and the forest is dark and ominous. There is a wonderful mystery in the darkness and I am oddly pleased that the wolves stay well hidden from our prying eyes. We stop on a bridge that crosses the Maksymdni River to open a gate and we soon drive out of the Bieszczady forest for the last time. R.K.
UPCOMING PROJECTS
In July of 2002 we are tentatively planning a research expedition back into the Bieszczady Mountains of Poland. We will be inviting 10 Americans to join the team of Science teachers, biologists, graduate students, environmentalists and wildlife/landscape photographers and filmmakers.
The expedition will participate in extensive hiking of the mountain region, observation of wildlife and we will meet and discuss issues with Polish wildlife biologists, local foresters, hunters and sheep farmers.
This research trip will be primarily exploring the concept of the European wilderness in the context of European history, Prey/predator relationships and wolf ecology. We encourage those with serious interest in these issues to apply.
For more information you may contact me at the following email address.rkatz@maine.edu
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