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It was certainly an unusual holiday reading list. Acta Theriologica
Nos 23 and 31, Wildlife Monograph 80, the Journal of Mammalogy, Abstracts
of the XVIIIth IUGB Congress, Krakow. There was no point asking at a bookshop
– the literature of the wolf has not been in the best-seller lists since
the days of Rudyard Kipling and Jack London. I had trouble enough digging
out the references in a university zoology library, where wolves are sandwiched
between the wildebeest and the wombat in the Noah’s Ark of the animal index.

The reading list came as part of a detailed 60-page brief published
by Earthwatch. I had assigned myself to a two-week volunteer stint with
Carpathian Wolves, a popular choice in Earthwatch’s programme of expeditions.
Earthwatch recruits helpers and sponsors to provide backup for scientists
working all over the world, in disciplines ranging from zoology and marine
biology to archaeology and the environment.

Most European projects are archaeological digs or environmental studies.
Carpathian Wolves, however, is a wildlife survey based in a mountainous
corner of Poland with an infinitely more exciting prospectus than many of
its competitors. But enthusiastic volunteers would be well-advised to do
their homework before packing. A little background reading before embarking
will dispel basic pre-conceptions. In particular, no one should expect to
encounter wolves in the wild.

Study of the elusive Canis lupus is, perforce, a deductive science.
Isle Royale in the Great Lakes, on the border of Canada and the US, had
the highest concentration of wolves in the world 25 years ago when David
Mech pioneered the study of wolf behaviour, hiking for 2200 kilometres over
four summers to gather data about them. Even then he only glimpsed his quarry
on three occasions. So fact-finding for the Carpathian Wolves project is
based on observations not of the predator but of its favoured prey – the
red deer.

This is not to say that the thrill of the chase was absent. It was September
and the height of the autumn rut when I joined the project, with a dozen
other volunteers. We were quartered in a farmhouse – and later a tourist
lodge – in the heart of the Beskidy mountain state forest. From the first
glimmer of dawn, we could hear the nearby stags, bellowing and snorting
fit to wake the dead.

Each day, one or two of us had the pleasure of accompanying the best
local tracker into the heart of the wood. After leading a long, log-leaping,
stream-splashing hike up slope and down bank, he would stop suddenly and
put a finger to his lips. Then it was down on hands and knees, for a silent,
breathless stalk downwind to within range of the deer – close enough to
witness the clash of antlers between rival stags, or the flash of a herd
of running does.

The daily routine began before dawn. Morning and evening, volunteers
would set out in pairs along the network of forest roads with instructions
to note the number of roaring stags they heard, and to count and sex any
deer spotted on the way. The walks lasted between two and four hours, through
a pleasant scenery of thick beech and pine forest, broken at intervals by
broad patches of greensward – the most likely location for a sighting. The
data are the basis of accurate estimates for the numbers of deer in the
Beskidy forest.

This annual census is the foundation of Carpathian Wolves. The field
research is headed by two biologists from Krakow’s Jagellonian University,
Boguslav Bobek and Kajetan Perzanovski. For several years now, they have
been attempting to resolve a controversy over the effect of wolf predation
on the red deer population. It is a matter of vital concern, because the
region has a unique ecology, and it has become the battleground for a number
of conflicting interests.

STALIN’S UNEXPECTED LEGACY

Poland’s Beskidy mountains lie on the country’s borders with Ukraine
and Slovakia, at the northern end of the great Carpathian chain. The hills
used to have a considerable human population – mixed communities of Poles,
Ruthenes and Ukrainians.

At the end of the Second World War, and in the aftermath of an uprising
against the Red Army and the communists in Warsaw, Stalin ordered the whole
population to be wiped out. The present woodland meadows, full of grazing
deer, are the sites of villages razed a generation ago. After some failed
state farm experiments, the area was given over to forestry, or simply abandoned.

Wildlife thrived in the vacuum – glamorous species like brown bear,
European bison and lynx. The red deer grew huge, and it was not long before
the hunters found out. The trophy stags of Beskidy carry the biggest, most
magnificent antlers in Europe – a distinction for which they now pay a heavy
price. During the rut, the local economy pulls in nearly two million deutschmarks
a month from rifle-toting German jugermeister.

Enter a wolf, ravening. Until 1975, wolves were shot as vermin in Poland,
and their numbers stayed low. Limited protection measures (they are now
hunted only in winter) allowed the packs to increase fivefold, and today
there may be two hundred animals in the Beskidy area alone – the healthiest
population in Europe. Local hunting interests resent these rival predators,
and would like to have them culled. They have observed a gradual decline
in the antler weights of ‘harvested’ stags, and they claim that the biggest
stags – exhausted by the rut – fall easy prey to hungry packs of wolves
during the snowbound winter months. Bobek and Perzanovski – and the Earthwatch
teams – have been working to prove them wrong.

On this matter, as we discovered, the jury is still out. As unarmed
volunteers, we were caught squarely in the ideological crossfire, especially
as the vegetarian members of the party felt more sympathy for the deer than
the wolves. But we all learnt one great lesson. Science can be pressed into
the service of almost any theory. Through the life of his project, the determined
Bobek – one of Europe’s most distinguished wolf experts – turned up a bewildering
number of variables to explain the decline in antler quality. It might be
a doubling of the deer population, the replacing of old forest with spruce
plantation monoculture, or the increase in disturbance caused by people
hiking or buzzing timber saws. Anything, he says, can affect the balance
of nature. A good year for ravens may mean quicker stripping of half-eaten
carcasses, which will, in turn, force wolves to kill more often.

It may even be that the hunters’ theory is right. No matter, because
Bobek and the conservationists are adroitly moving the goalposts. Their
argument now is that the large mammal ecosystem of Beskidy – wolf, deer,
otters, bear, boar and all – should be protected as a whole. As Poland emerges
from its Iron Curtain stagnation, a host of new pressures are bearing down
upon this remote region – entrepreneurs planning ski resorts and caravan
camps, ministries advocating the wholesale clearance of forests so destroying
the wolves’ habitat and even political instability across the frontier.

VODKA AND SAUSAGE

Bobek’s ecologists are prepared to ally with traditional interests –
charcoal burners, small foresters, even the hunters – against the big incursions.
If they have their way, future Earthwatch volunteers will be involved in
the planning of a model biosphere reserve – promoting eco-tourism, calculating
renewable energy resources, setting fishing quotas, and designing hiking
paths.

For the present, volunteers on the Carpa-thian Wolves project have the
pleasure of being appreciated simply for turning up. In our off-duty hours
we met with local forest workers, visited experimental deer pens, and a
saw the project’s four captive wolves. On a day off, we hiked with Krakow
biology students to find a bear’s hibernation den deep in the forest. Our
generous hosts even arranged a barbecue of local sausage washed down with
Polish vodka.

But Bobek told me the single most useful thing any volunteer can do
is walk into a village shop and buy a tin of beans. Local people, he says,
never had a good word for the wolves in their woods until they met foreigners
who seemed to take such an interest in them. It is comforting to know that
being a tourist can, sometimes, do more good than harm.

William Green is a freelance journalist.

* * *

Watching over the Earth

Earthwatch is a charity, founded 20 years ago in the US which fosters
a bold and imaginative relationship between scientists and the public. Volunteers
pay to work on Earthwatch’s projects. They enjoy fresh air, fun and the
clear conscience that comes from having spent this year’s holiday money
in a good cause. ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´s get willing workers, vital funding, good management
experience and some feedback for their ideas.

The American personality of Earthwatch is evident from its magazine-style
brochures. Volunteers can expect to find themselves at ‘the cutting edge
of science, the forefront of the effort to address the world’s environmental
and cultural concerns’. That effort leans markedly towards projects that
reflect the current whims of eco-fashion. This year, no fewer than 16 out
of the 143 schemes are to do with whales and dolphins; other assorted sea
mammals and turtles.

Customer satisfaction, inevitably, affects the selection process. The
average Earthwatch volunteer is more likely to have a general ‘caring and
sharing’ attitude to Planet Earth than a passion for pure science. Project
initiators who join the scramble for funding are entering a beauty contest
where their marketing skills matter as much as the worth of the research.

Earthwatch is well aware of these difficulties. One recent brochure
featured an essay by Norman Myers of Oxford’s Green College, in which he
analyses ‘the public appeal of charismatic megavertebrates’ – such as tigers
and whales, cranes and condors – and the twist that this gives to conservation
priorities. It is much to the credit of Earthwatch that, alongside sexy
subjects like the Venezuelan Red Howler monkey, the programme still finds
room for research on such obscure topics as flower pollination in Colorado.

The Carpathian Wolves Project costs Pounds sterling 935 (for 14 nights).
The project has nearly run its 5-year course, but at least two field trips
are planned for 1994. These will involve tracking wolves through snow, and
analysing deer kills. Details from Earthwatch, Belsyre Court, 57 Woodstock
Road, Oxford. Tel: 0865 311600.