I am currently reading this book about the five large carnivores of Scandinavia and I am absolutely humbled, both by finding out how little I knew about them, what prejudice I had against them and how people that live in close proximity to them can both love, respect and be angry with them at the same time. I am reading the original release in Swedish.
- What have you encountered in the wild?
- When, where, how?
- What were your initial thoughts, feelings and reactions (physical, psychological, etc.)?
- What do think of them in general? <— this last question applies to everybody, regardless of whether you have seen or met one of these large carnivores or not.
Personally, without having met any one of them, I am humbled, scared, amazed and intrigued by them. I feel for those whose - for instance - livestock are threatened by them, especially if it directly damages business. I also strongly believe that the matter should not be dumbed down to the dichotmy of “ignore those that suffer from them” or “eradicate them”. We are far too intelligent and developed a race to degrade ourselves so.
I saw eight bears on Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway back in the nineties: a mother and six cubs on one day, and an adult on its own on another. Those fuckers are big.
More recently I was on a coach from Vilnius to Warsaw and saw loads of wolves. Those fuckers are big.
For both occasions I felt something like a distant, muted, primal fear and I was very grateful to be inside a vehicle.
Not a carnivore, but a few years ago I was hiking alone in northern Norway and I came across a small group of reindeer who obviously took a liking to me and followed me for about two hours, very close. They were big enough to do some damage but I didn’t feel even slightly threatened by them, nor them by me, apparently. Those fuckers stink.
They big, they stink, they amazing. :) <3
But seriously, I just read in this book to which I have linked above, that Transylvania has the biggest wolf pack in all of Europe. Poland being pretty close to Romania.