WHERE WOOD GROUSES COURT IN SPRINGTIME
I was lying in a small wood glade and looking up into the autumn sky: transparent, but already fading, blue streaked with oblique rays of the sun soared to a limitless height, lonely yellowish leaves were falling off the birch trees, but sometimes a gentle gust of wind would raise a cloud of these leaves which then came down like a golden shower. When the wind abated, an amazing pin-drop silence set in, and then the surrounding world seemed to be sailing far behind the horizon of its true existence, yet bringing about the sensation of complete fusion with it...
The place is the Polissia Nature Preserve. It has been in de jure existence since November 1968, when the Ukrainian SSR Council of Ministers decided to establish a preserved area between the rivers Ubort and Bolotnytsia in northern Zhytomyr oblast in order to conserve the natural condition of typical Polissia landscapes, a few remaining Ukrainian swamps, forests, and the rare species of plants and animals, as well as to conduct scientific research on the environment. The preserve occupies a total area of a little more than 20,000 hectares, out of which the forest accounts for 17,800 ha. and swamps for 2,200-2,300 ha. Yet, only about 58% of this forest is of natural origin, with the rest having been planted by human hands. The average age of pines that dominate the preserve, and of birch-trees is a little over forty years and that of alders is fifty years. There are also the remnants old forests (up to 5% of the total area), where pines, for example, are 100-130 years old. This situation resulted from the active felling of these woods in the prewar years by the Soviet military who built defense lines here and after the war by lumberjacks. During the war itself considerable stretches of the local forests were wiped out by the Nazis. The preserve’s terrain mostly features wooded sand dunes, ridges, and bulwarks. The hollows are filled with marshes which play the important role of a natural regulator of water supplies: when there is precipitation they suck in the moisture, and in dry weather they give it back. Banned here are almost all kinds of farming (except small-scale selective mowing of hay), commercial woodcutting (except for sanitary reasons), hunting, mushroom, and berry picking, i.e., practically all varieties of economic activities. Nature takes refuge here from people, while people protect and watch over it. What creates new problems is a certain level of radioactive contamination: after the Chornobyl disaster it spread to a larger or smaller degree to both the preserved area and the surrounding locality.
WHAT AND WHO IS BEING PROTECTED HERE?
In addition to trees and shrubs, 604 species of the so-called capillary plants, 139 species of mosses, dozens of species of lichens and algae occur on the preserve’s territory. “Growing here,” Halyna Bumar, candidate of sciences in biology and deputy director in charge of research of the preserve, says, “are sixteen species of trees and plants listed in the Red Book of Ukraine. Among them are the dark birch, the whortleberry willow, representatives of the orchid family, several species of the dactylorhiza genus, some varieties of lycopods, and other species and groups of basically marsh flora, which face extinction. The Green Book of Ukraine contains lichenous pine woods which occupy a considerable space here.” Owing to the bright-gray coloring of the lichens that cover the ground between the trees, these woods are popularly known as bilomshanyky (white shrouded). Oddly enough, any mention of the preserve brings to mind precisely the landscape of these bilomshanyky; you can close your eyes and see a carpet woven by lichens around the tree as if reflecting the cloudless fall sky. Then the carpet begins to radiate a mild blue light, spreading a kind of deep sadness all around.
Also more and more rare in Ukraine are pine, green-moss, long- moss, and juniper-lichenous (juniper is a three to five meter tall coniferous tree looking like a thuja) forests represented in the preserve. The beauty of local woods, very modest and bleak at first glance, is still full of hidden natural attractiveness.
Birds and beasts here feel at home. The preserve’s swamps, rivers, and springs contribute to the survival of many animals that cannot stand even the slightest pollution. In the nesting season alone, birds of 136 species dwell here. The Red Book species include, in particular, the wood grouse (there are over forty of them now in the preserve), the black stork, the snake eagle, the golden eagle, the bearded owl (which has come somewhere from the taiga), and some other representatives of our feathered friends.
“The springtime courtship games of the wood grouses,” preserve senior research associate Hryhory Bumar continues, “turn into quite a show. It usually starts in late March and reaches its peak the first ten days of April. Having flown to the mating ground (the chosen outskirts of a wood or a swamp) at night and perched in a tree, each bird begins to sing its repertoire consisting of orderly cracking, beak- clicking, and high-pitched gurgling sounds. At daybreak, the wood grouses (usually three to seven birds, though sometimes only one male performs the courting ritual) come down to earth and continue to sing with animation, hopping and strutting over the mating ground with their wings and tails widely spread out. Sometimes the cocks clash with each other (In the heat of courtship, a wood grouse can encounter a creeping hunter or a beast of pray or a swooping hawk, and then his song can stop forever). This attracts females that come together around the performers they like. After mating, female wood grouses lay eggs, while males can still go on very long with their show, but this time in a lower key.”
Out of the animals entered in The Red Book of Ukrain , the preserve features river otters, ermines, white hares, and the common lynx has also been spotted. In general, the lynx as a species is on the brink of extinction on the territory of Ukrainian Polissia, preserve director Serhiy Zhyla thinks. The problem of preserving this surprisingly graceful wildcat is recognized on an international level because it is also acute in other European countries: the lynx occurs there only in mountainous or taiga- type forests mostly in the north of the continent.
But such predators as wolves, foxes, and martens have not yet become rare in the preserve and the adjacent forests. They still making their contribution to the biological balance. (This author was make to watch a red-tailed beauty hunting on the woods’ outskirts early in the evening).
There are also beavers building their dams. Their population numbers over forty in the preserve alone. Mr. Zhyla points out that market situation has contributed to some increase in the number of martens, foxes, and beavers: falling fur prices have diminished the interest of hunters in their hides, so the animals now feel freer even outside the preserve.
Simultaneously, meat-yielding species have become the object of mass hunting in the coterminous woods: this concerns, first of all, elks, as well as roe deer and boars. These hoofed animals, so far considered common species in the preserve, could soon be classified as rare. The early autumn, the Polissia preserve director says, signals the beginning of poaching mayhem in the woods east of the preserve. Moreover, it is not only the local villagers who are often forced to do this by their meager means. Among those not averse to predatory hunting are businessmen, high-ranking officials, Security Service and police officers, managers of large enterprises from nearby district centers, Zhytomyr, and sometimes even from Kyiv. Owing to the special features of the woods in the preserve (excessive density of trees and plants, shortage of young trees), animals lack food and have to come under the poachers’ gun sights in search of something to eat.
A PRESERVE OR A BIOSPHERE RESERVE?
The current situation, as well as some more general considerations, are raising an increasingly pressing problem of transforming the Polissia Natural Preserve, with its functions and area to be extended, Mr. Zhyla maintains.
Now under consideration is his plan to set up the so-called transitional zone east of the preserve. This zone, as well as the preserve’s territory, is to be protected from poaching and other varieties of illegal hunting. With this in view, it is intended to establish Rys (lynx), an experimental hunting compound, subordinated to the Polissia preserve. At the same time, this area should continue to perform its usual economic functions, such as approved woodcutting, farming, and animal husbandry, and develop licensed hunting and environmental tourism. This would make it possible, on the one hand, to provide wildlife protection where it does not in fact exist now and, above all, to save elks and other hoofed animals from extermination and create conditions for the settlement and migration of the lynx and perhaps other rare animals. On the other hand, this will help develop a pattern to harmoniously combine human economic activities with the existence, conservation, and exploitation of the living nature. Should this zone be established, the Polissia preserve, including the already existing completely conserved and protected zones, would meet one of the main criteria of the biosphere reserve concept drawn up as part of Man and Biosphere, a UNESCO-sponsored program. This criterion demands that such natural and social complexes comprise basic preserved territories (or nuclei), a buffer zone, and a transitional zone (or a cooperation zone). Mr. Zhyla is convinced that the preserve can receive a developmental impetus only if it is transformed into a biosphere reserve. The possibility is now being considered, as a variety of such transformation, to set up a border biosphere reserve based in the Prepaid National Park, which covers a sizable area on the adjacent territory of Belarus, and the Polissia preserve. If implemented, these plans could make it possible to establish a nature complex on an international scale.
IN LIEU OF AN EPILOGUE, OR WHY DO WE NEED ALL THIS?
Imagine that all the surrounding environment — trees, flowers, grass, rivers, swamps, beasts, birds, and fish — suddenly vanishes, leaving us face to face with our skyscrapers, automobiles, computers, pipelines, and mines, i.e., all we have created artificially. In all probability, few would want to live in such a world. Let our hearts be warmed with the knowledge that such natural gems as the Polissia preserve and other small islands of virgin nature still exist in this world. As long as they surround us, we will remember where we came from and thanks to what we live.
