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Romanian Wildlife

Big Mammals, Big Populations

Is it safe to go into the woods today?  Bears, wolves and lynx roam freely throughout the Carpathians, sometimes venturing into the cities and livestock is at risk.  But attacks on humans is rare, despite the contact these big mammals have along the fringes of their ranges.

The coniferous tree forests of Romania's mountains, are the natural habitat of these big mammals, as well as deer, martens, wood-peckers, nightingale, crows and hawks.

Romania's Big Bear!

 The Carpathian brown bear population is the largest in Europe, estimated at 4,500 to 5,000 bears.   As a subspecies, the Carpathian bear (Ursus arctos formicarius) is the smallest subspecies of the European brown bears.

The Carpathian Brown Bear constitutes the smallest subspecies of bear, a member of the wider Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos) species. DNA analysis has recently revealed that the Carpathian subspecies of brown bear are genetically quite homogeneous, and that their genetic phylogeography does not correspond to their traditional taxonomy.

Bears Like Fish And berries.  And sometimes rubbish bins in County Braşov too!

Photo: USFWS

Carpathian Bears have furry coats in shades of blonde, brown, black, or a combination of those colours. The longer outer guard hairs of the brown bear are often tipped with white or silver.  With a large hump of muscle over their shoulders, they have great strength in the forelimbs for digging. Forearms end in massive paws with very powerful claws up to 15 cm (5.9 inches) in length.

The mature females sometimes weigh as little as 90 kg (200 lb), compared with the largest subspecies of the brown bear, the Kodiak bear and the bears from coastal Russia and Alaska. Along with their strength and deceptive speed, Carpathian Brown Bears are legendary for their stamina. They are capable of running at full speed for miles at a time without stopping. They prefer semi-open country, usually in mountainous areas.  

History

In Europe, the brown bear outlasted the larger and closely related cave bear. The cave bear was hunted by Neanderthals who may have had a religion relating to this bear, the Cave Bear Cult, but the Neanderthal population was too small for their consumption of cave bear to result in the species extinction and the cave bear outlasted the Neanderthals by 18,000 years, becoming extinct about 10,000 years ago. The cave bear and brown bear diets were similar, and the two species probably lived in the same area at the same time.

Behavior

The brown bear is primarily nocturnal and, in the summer, puts on alot of fat, on which it relies to make it through winter, when it becomes very lethargic. Although they are not true hibernators, and can be woken easily, they like to den in a protected spot such as a cave, crevice, or hollow log during the winter months.

Eating

They are omnivores and feed on a variety of plant parts, including berries, roots, and sprouts, fungi, fish, insects, and small mammals, especially ground squirrels. Contrary to popular mythology, brown bears are not particularly carnivorous as they derive up to 90% of their dietary food energy from vegetable matter. Their jaw structure has evolved to fit their dietary habits and it is longer and lacks strong, sharp canine teeths of true predators.

Bears eat an enormous number of moths during the summer, sometimes as many as 20,000 to 40,000 in a day, and may derive up to a third of their food energy from these insects.

Brown bears retrace their own tracks and walk only on rocks while being hunted to avoid being traced. Brown bears steal the deceased prey of wolves and lynx throughout the Carpathians where their ranges intersect. These animals can cause the bear to retreat if they are able to scare the bear.

Posture

The brown bear is plantigrade like all bears, meaning it walks with its entire foot like a human, rather than in its toes like cats and dogs, which are digitigrade. They can stand up on their hind legs for extended periods of time. Bears tend to sit down on their rear with their upper body off the ground.

Normally a solitary animal, the Brown Bear congregates alongside streams and rivers during the salmon spawn in the fall. Every other year females produce one to four young, which weigh only about 1 to 2 kg (2 to 5 lb) at birth. Raised entirely by their mother, cubs are taught to climb trees when in danger.

Habituation to human areas

A fed bear is a dead bear - bears are relocated when possible, but repeat offenders may be killed when they have associated humans with food sources.Bears become attracted to human-created food sources such as garbage dumps, litter bins and dumpsters and venture into human dwellings or barns in search of food as humans encroach into bear habitat.

Throughout their habitat in Romania, Carpathian bears sometimes kill and eat farm animals. When bears come to associate human activity with a "food reward", a bear is likely to continue to become emboldened and the likeliness of human-bear encounters increases. The saying, "a fed bear is a dead bear," has come into use to popularize the idea that allowing bears to scavenge human garbage, pet food, or other food sources that draw the bear into contact with humans can result in a bear's death.

Bear Safety

It is extremely rare that Carpathian bears kill or seriously injure humans, with only three known cases during the last 100 years in which humans were killed by bears in Europe. Attacks usually occur because the bear is injured or a human encounters a mother bear with cubs.

Anyone walking in a forest where there are bears should carry an air horn because 'bear bells' tend to provoke a bear's curiosity and a brown bear's natural instinct is to run away from humans. When traveling in groups trail songs are also effective. If camping, do not bring food into the tent and clean up all garbage. Bears have a fantastic sense of smell and will eat anything people eat. If one meets a bear, one should remain calm and slowly walk in the opposite direction. Running humans trigger the bear's chasing instinct and bears can outrun humans. Do not make threatening moves, eye contact, or shout. Thousands of encounters occur between humans and brown bears every year without conflict.

If a Brown Bear attacks and it is impossible to get away, the person should lie down in a fetal position and put his/her hands around the head to protect from bites to reduce damage to vital organs. Pretending to be dead may save you. Punching or gouging attacking brown bears intensifies their assaults.

It is important to remember that the considerations while hunting a brown bear are different from those which arise while defending against an attacking brown bear. Hunters will wait for a broadside shot at the heart/lung area of unsuspecting bears. With proper placement, almost any rifle is capable of taking out a Carpathian bear in these circumstances.

Range of the Lynx in Central Europe Romania has the greatest population of any Central European country

Photo: Ralph Schmode

Romania's Big Wild Cat:  The Lynx

The Lynx in Romania is the largest wild-cat of all the lynx types world-wide, in the species "Lynx lynx Eurasian Lynx", with short tails, and a tuft of hair on the tip of the ears.  There are about 2200 lynxes in the Carpathians, making them the largest continuous lynx population west of the Russian border.

Romania's large Lynx have large paws padded for walking on the deep winter snows in the Carpathians, and long whiskers on the face.

The colour of the body varies from light brown to grey and is occasionally marked with dark brown spots, especially on the limbs. They range about 5 kg (11 pounds) (roughly the size of a large domestic cat) up to about 30 kg (66 pounds). The Eurasian Lynx found throughout the mountains of Romania is significantly larger than the other species found in the U.S. and Canada.

Habitat

The lynx inhabits the high altitude forests with dense cover of shrubs, reeds and grass. Though the cat hunts only on the ground, it can climb trees and swim.

The same Lynx as found in Romania, the Eurasian Lynx (Lynx lynx), was considered to be extinct in other parts of central Europe, but continued to thrive in the rich habitat of the Carpathian mountain system and across parts of the Transilvanian plateau.

Behaviour

The Lynx is usually solitary, although a group of cats can travel and hunt together. Mating takes place in the late winter just before the snow melts start in the lower ranges of the Romanian mountains.  Its desired resting place is in crevices or under ledges, and it gives birth to 2 to 4 kittens at a time. It feeds on birds and mammals and often on sheep and goats.  However spotting a lynx is an event most seen by shepherds in the Carpathians, due to the rather shy and solitary nature of the animal.

The Gray Wolf of Romania

Looking deep in to the spruce and fir woodlands of the Carpathian mountains, a chill may rise as you see a pair of yellow eyes looking back at you!

The wolves still found in Romania were once abundant and distributed over much of Europe, yet today, for a variety of human-related reasons including widespread habitat destruction and excessive hunting, wolves inhabit only a very limited portion of their former range.

The main differences between wolves found in the mountains of Romania and the domestic dogs of Romania are that wolves have, on average, 30% larger brains, a better immune system, better sense of smell, and are generally much larger than domestic dogs, although many tourists have sworn to have seen big wolves on the streets of Bucharest!

The Wolf in Romanian Lore

The wolf holds a long association in Romanian folklore and history.  Many towns are named for wolves of the region.  Vulcan in County Hunedoara is a city is named after the Vulcan Pass that connects the Jiu Valley to Oltenia, itself being derived from Slavic "vlk", meaning "wolf".  Bizarrely enough, the nearby town of Lupeni is more obviously derived from the Romanian word for wolf, "lup". 

A Pricolici is a werewolf in Romanian mythology. Similar to a vârcolac, although the latter sometimes symbolises a goblin, whereas the pricolici always has wolf-like characteristics.

Even as recently as modern times, many people living in rural areas of Romania have claimed to have been viciously attacked by abnormally large and fierce wolves. Apparently, these wolves attack silently, unexpectedly and only solitary targets. Victims of such attacks often claim that their aggressor wasn't an ordinary wolf, but a pricolici who has come back to life to continue wreaking havoc!

Pricolici, like strigoi, are undead souls that have risen from the grave to harm living people. While a strigoi possesses anthropomorphic qualities similar to the ones it had before death, a pricolici always resembles a wolf or large dog. Malicious, violent men are often said to become pricolici after death, in order to continue harming other humans.   A rather nasty bit of folklore indeed!   One can only wonder what Ceausescu would be like as a pricolici.

Habitats of the Grey Wolf in Romania

In the Piatra Craiului mountains chamois and other large herbivores provide prey for the local wolf population, and also for many other large carnivores (Carpathian brown bears and lynx) living in the national park there. 

The Design of the Wolf

Wolves are built for stamina, possessing features tailored for long-distance travel across the inner and outer Carpathian ranges. Their paws are able to traverse easily through a wide variety of terrains, especially snow. There is a slight webbing between each toe, which allows wolves to move over snow more easily than comparatively hampered prey. Wolves are digitigrade, so the relative largeness of their feet helps to better distribute their weight on snowy surfaces. The front paws are larger than the hind paws, and feature a fifth digit, a dewclaw, that is absent on hind paws. Bristled hairs and blunt claws enhance grip on slippery surfaces, and special blood vessels keep paw pads from freezing in the cold winters of the Carpathian alps.

Coloration varies greatly, and runs from gray to gray-brown, all the way through the canine spectrum of white, red, brown, and black. These colours tend to mix in many populations to form predominantly blended individuals, though it is certainly not uncommon for an individual or an entire population to be entirely one colour (usually all black or all white).

A multicolour coat characteristically lacks any clear pattern other than it tends to be lighter on the animal's underside. Fur colour sometimes corresponds with a given wolf population's environment; for example, all-white wolves are much more common in areas with perennial snow cover. Aging wolves acquire a grayish tint in their coats.

Wolves can visually communicate an impressive variety of expressions and moods that range from subtler signals, such as a slight shift in weight, to the more obvious ones, like rolling on the back as a sign of complete submission.

Howling and other vocalizations

Wolves howl for several reasons. Howling helps pack members keep in touch, allowing them to effectively communicate in the thickly forested areas of the upper reaches of the Carpathians.  Furthermore, howling helps to summon pack members to a specific location. Howling can also serve as a declaration of territory, as portrayed by a dominant wolf's tendency to respond to a human imitation of a "rival" individual in an area that the wolf considers its own.

Wolves will also howl for communal reasons. Some scientists speculate that such group sessions strengthen the wolves' social bonds and camaraderie— similar to community singing among humans.

Growling, used in tandem with bared teeth, is the most visual and effective warning wolves use. Just back away slowly if you see this, but don't run!  Wolf growls have a distinct, deep, bass-like quality, and are used much of the time as a threat, though they are not always necessarily used for defense. Wolves will also growl at other wolves while being aggressively dominant.

Wolves function as social predators and hunt in packs organized according to strict, rank-oriented social hierarchies. It was originally thought that this comparatively high level of social organization had more to do with hunting success, and while this still may be true to a certain extent, emerging theories suggest that the pack has less to do with hunting and more to do with reproductive success.

The pack is led by the two individuals that sit atop the social hierarchy: the alpha male and the alpha female. The alpha pair (of whom only one may be the "top" alpha) has the greatest amount of social freedom compared to the rest of the pack, but they are not "leaders" in the human sense of the term. The alphas do not give the other wolves orders; rather, they simply have the most freedom in choosing where to go, what to do, and when to do it. Possessing strong instincts for fellowship, the rest of the pack usually follows.

Cooperative hunting and diet

Packs of wolves cooperatively hunt any large herbivores in their range. Pack hunting revolves around the chase, as wolves are able to run for long periods before relenting. It takes meticulous cooperation for a pack to take down a large prey animal, but the success rate of such chases is actually very low. Wolves, in the interest of saving energy, will only chase any one potential prey animal for the first thousand or so meters before giving up and trying again at a different time with a different prey.

Wolves' diets include, but are not limited to, elk, caribou, moose, deer, and other large ungulates.

They also prey on rodents and small animals in a limited manner, as a typical adult wolf requires a minimum of 1.1 kg (2.5 lb) of food per day for sustenance, but approximately 2.2 kg to reproduce successfully; however, this certainly doesn't mean that a wolf will get the chance to eat everyday. 

Like many other keystone predators, wolves are sensitive to fluctuations in prey abundance, making them likely to experience minor changes within their own populations as the abundance of their primary prey species gradually rises and drops over long periods of time. This balance between wolves and their prey prevents the mass starvation of all species involved.

Relationships with other predators

In the Carpathian mountains, the Gray Wolf will sometimes encounter the equally adaptable Carpathian Brown Bear. The collective ferocity of the wolf pack and the imposing size and strength of the bear often ensures that encounters between the two result in little more than defensive posturing. The Carpathian Bear however, will eat wolf cubs, particularly in the post winter season after a long fast. Wolf packs in turn will kill bear cubs and on some rare occasions, even pull down adults if the stakes are high enough. Both will steal each other's kills given the opportunity.

Livestock predation

As long as there is enough prey, wolves seem to avoid taking livestock, often ignoring them entirely. However, some wolves or packs can specialize in hunting livestock once the behaviour is learned despite natural prey abundance. In such situations, sheep in the lower pastures in the foothills of the Carpathians are usually the most vulnerable, but horses and cattle are also at risk. Wolf-secure fences, relocation where applicable, and local wolf extermination are the only known methods to effectively stop livestock predation.

Related Subspecies of the Grey Wolf in Romania

It was once believed there were up to 50 subspecies. However, the last decade has seen a new and widely accepted list that has been condensed to 13 living subspecies, 14 including the common dog, and 2 recently extinct subspecies. This takes into account the anatomy, distribution, and migration of various wolf colonies.

Caspian Sea Wolf Canis lupus cubanensis Endangered, declining Between the Caspian and Black seas A smaller subspecies. Hunted as a nuisance animal.

Italian Wolf Canis lupus italicus Endangered Italian peninsula An average-sized subspecies. Full canine color spectrum represented. Occupy comparatively smaller territories. Protected.

Russian Wolf Canis lupus communis Stable, declining Central Russia A very large subspecies. Hunted legally.

The Carpathian Chamois in Romania

The Romanian chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra ssp. carpatica) is a goat-like animal that lives in the Carpathian mountains of Romania, with other subspecies in the Alps, Apennines, and as far south as northern Greece. It is in the Caprinae subfamily of bovids, along with sheep and goats.

As a mountain dweller, the chamois is excellently adapted to living in the rugged, rocky terrain of the Carpathians. A fully grown chamois reaches a height of about 75 cm (2.5 feet) and weighs about 50 kg (110 lb). Both males and females have short horns which are slightly curled backwards. In summer, the chamois' fur has a rich brown color which turns to a light grey in winter. Distinct characteristics are a white face with pronounced black stripes below the eyes, a white backside and a black dorsal strip. Chamois can reach an age of up to 20 years.

Female chamois and their kids live in herds; grown-up males tend to live solitary for most of the year. During rut season (mid December in Romania), males seek out female herds and engage in fierce fights with each other. After a gestation period of 20 weeks, a single kid is born. The kid is fully grown at an age of three years. It is rumoured that in farming areas, male chamois will occasionally mate with goats and produce sterile hybrids, but no such event has ever been scientifically recorded.

Read about conservation and relocation efforts for the chamois here.

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