They hunt illegally in the rural parts of Romania. In this episode, we learn more.
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Blajin #2
Rural Hunters
Translated from Romanian by Edmond.
Location: undisclosed.
Recorded on: September 3, 2023.
Published on: September 7, 2023.
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Adi
Today we’ll talk about a lesser-known thing that takes place in Romania – well, the phenomenon is known, but I think its amplitude is not that well known. I’m talking about Romania’s illegal poaching situation, and on this episode we’ll talk to our friend H, who knows the situation very well and he can tell us under anonymity what’s really going on behind the scenes. So let’s start with this: how much poaching actually takes place in Romania?
H
A lot. Basically in every county where there are animals that can be hunted, poachers are hunting them. And there are places in Romania where they hunted so much that the animal population crumbled.
Costin
But where does the most poaching take place, in rural areas?
H
Yes. The greatest damage is done in rural areas, where it’s hard to intervene… the police, the Forest Department, etc. In the city – in the areas near cities where there is game, in their forests – there is less poaching going on. The people from the city also hunt, but most of them travel to rural areas to hunt, longer distances… I’m talking about the ones who hunt illegally, some of them, a few.
Adi
So the hunters from the city usually go hunting in rural areas – I mean, like you said, they go hunting in the forests from rural areas, not the forests that might be located near the cities.
H
Yes. And they are usually the type of hunters that are… they have a certain quality of sportsmanship. They follow rules. It’s more of a passion for them. They understand and respect hunting as a sport, most of them anyway. But the ones from the villages [in rural areas] are a terror.
Costin
These guys don’t hunt from passion?
H
Sometimes they do. They have passion – yes. But they mostly hunt for themselves, and also for the meat.
Adi
To eat the meat…
H
Yes. The villagers hunt more for themselves, for their families. Not that they don’t have what to eat, not that they are starving or anything like that; not necessarily because of poverty. But many of them hunt to eat the meat of deer, wild boar, etc. They freeze the meat and eat for a long time – top quality meat, very healthy meat. They are used to this. When you draw the line… this business is worthwhile.
Costin
Do they also sell the meat that comes from poaching?
H
No, not really. You see, in Romania poachers don’t usually sell their meat because there isn’t a great market for something like this. I know quite a few poachers who used to sell their game meat in the past, but in general the poachers in this country don’t sell – and if they sell, the meat is not sold in huge quantities, there isn’t a functional market for this.
Adi
So a poacher – this type of poacher, from a rural area – how many animals does he kill every year?
H
It depends. In general poachers from these areas shoot a lot of animals. I tell you, this type of poacher, from these more isolated areas, if he has a rifle, he will go hunting very often and will kill many animals each year. But I can’t tell you how many because it depends on many things. One obvious factor is how good they are hunting.
Costin
Of course.
Adi
I know it’s difficult to say, it’s difficult to make an average, but can you give us an example, maybe someone you know, how many animals they kill?
H
I can give you many examples. I can… well, I’ll give you an example of someone who just popped in my mind.
Costin
Go on.
H
In my village, where I was born but no longer live, at least half of all families there have guns and hunt regularly.
Costin
Illegally?
H
I would say that around… around 70% of those who hunt, do so illegally. I know the situation very well in my village because I used to go with them a lot when I was younger.
Adi
OK.
H
In my village there is a guy, for example, who I think is about 45 right now, so he’s not that old. This guy alone used to shoot at least 30 wild animals each year, deer and boar, and god knows how many birds like pheasant and quail. Of course, he doesn’t hunt in the periods when game is scarce, but that would be his average, about 30 large animals per year, a very conservative estimation. Now, the others from the village don’t shoot as much, but they too average something like 10 large animals per year, which is a lot when you consider that there are… there are well over 100 of these guys in my village alone who do this shit.
Adi
Yeah. In my village also… something like that.
H
The number of actual poachers is always underestimated by the authorities.
Costin
You said that there are over 100 poachers in your village—
H
At least 100 poachers, who hunt regularly.
Costin
At least 100, OK. Are the authorities aware of them?
H
Are you kidding? No. They have no clue.
Costin
How many do they suspect are poachers? If they suspect at all.
H
If… if, for example, somebody came and did like a study, or they came, they came… somebody from the outside, to investigate, to try to solve the problem, they would not find them all. They would only find a fraction of them. Of the total number… the real total number.
Adi
Aha.
H
And I tell you something else. Another important thing. Not only do poachers from these areas [the rural areas] go hunting regularly – they go hunting regularly all their life, until old age. And the crappy part – they are teaching their sons to do the same, and many of their sons will do the same. Many of them will become hunters themselves, and they too will someday teach their sons how to hunt… and there’s this cycle…
Costin
Yes. In the families of hunters, most males are active hunters. I mean, if there’s a hunter that you know and you do a little research on him, you’ll find out that his father was also a hunter, his grandfather was also a hunter, his great-grandfather was also a hunter, and so on.
Adi
Yeah.
H
This is the situation in Romania.
Adi
And the authorities – what they are doing about it?
H
They are doing their best, but it’s hard. The thing is very complicated. I’ve worked for the Forest Department for many years and we have always done our jobs, where I worked. But there are 3 big problems that make things complicated and I don’t see a solution to any of them anytime soon.
Adi
What are these problems?
H
First off, in these rural areas that we are talking about, where there’s a lot of hunting going on, without a license, we are dealing with very clever hunters, who are difficult to catch. These are locals who know the land very well and know what they have to do. Trust me when I tell you, it’s almost impossible to catch them in the act. They will see you before you can see them and…
Adi
But aren’t there hidden cameras in our forests?
H
There are. In some forests there are quite a lot of them, but they are usually available in [national] parks, and the poachers don’t usually go there. Plus, they know how to avoid them. And a lot of hunting actually takes place not in the forests… I mean not deep into the forests, more like the forests closer to where people live, and closer to where the fields are, where people grow their crops, and in these zones there aren’t any cameras – cameras placed by the Forest Department. So there’s also this to be considered.
Adi
Do they look for them?
H
Yes. They know where they are. These cameras.
Costin
Let me tell you a short story about this, just so you know who some of these guys are. A year ago or so a friend of mine who’s a notorious poacher in [county name redacted] showed me on his phone pictures of these supposedly hidden cameras that were placed by the rangers to stop the poaching in that area where he hunts. He would go in the forest and he would photograph these cameras and he would note where they were placed, and he would go to do his poaching, avoiding all of them. This summer, another friend, who’s not a poacher but he’s a great outdoorsman, showed me the same thing on his phone when I asked him about these cameras; where the rangers had placed them, in which spots.
Adi
And they didn’t see him when he would photograph them?
Costin
No because he took the photos from an angle.
Adi
And where were they placed?
Costin
In the trees. Some – like the ones from this guy in [redacted] – were also camouflaged. They had camouflage… they were painted in camouflage paint. I have no idea how the fuck he saw them. But they were there, in the trees, and he evaded them when he went hunting.
H
OK. Now, many will not understand one thing: most of these rural poachers, from the villages, know how to avoid cameras. They know very, very well the places where they go hunting, and usually they don’t go to new areas. Very rarely. They go into their forests, they have some spots, spots that are not at all small spots, big areas of land, and they do their thing there. And yes, what you have said now – they do. These poachers hunt both animals and cameras – and they find them because they are not dumb when it comes to this. They see with different eyes. I said before that the authorities underestimate how many poachers there really are; well, they also underestimate their capabilities. To be honest, after I moved from the Forest Department and had many interactions with law enforcement agencies, I can tell you that most of the ones in charge from the cities think these people are dumb. They may be dumb in other ways – but they’re not dumb when it comes to hunting. The guy from my village who I’ve mentioned… that guy can barely write. He can’t do basic math. I don’t think he’s ever read a book. But he’s a formidable hunter who’s never going to be caught because he’s one step ahead of everyone in nature.
[a pause]
The camera thing… if… if for example, the three of us, we go into a forest and specifically look for cameras, you guys [Adi and Costin] might spot a few of them, I might spot more of them, but someone like this can spot all of them – if he really is looking for them. And currently in Romania there aren’t any cameras that are so high-tech that they are impossible to detect.
Costin
Good point, I was just about to comment on this.
Adi
I was thinking it also, really. Why are they not using very small cameras, like the ones used for spying, models that, I don’t know, can be hidden in a hollow tree or something, camera models that can be used to catch them 100%?
H
There are 2 things. The obvious one: there’s no money for something like this. And if… let’s say someone manages to make a project for this that gets approved, they would buy only an insufficient amount of these cameras, and Romania is a country with many forests, the kind of which are unique in Europe. Large forests, old forests… hard to reach forests. You need many cameras to stop the phenomenon, if this is what you are referring to. Second, the second thing, like I said, the amplitude of the poaching phenomenon is not fully known. If the people in charge from Bucharest really knew how much is being hunted, maybe they would do something about it.
Adi
They don’t know the extent of the thing?
H
They don’t. Those in high places. In Romania poachers illegally hunt many more animals than what they [the authorities] think they know.
Adi
Because most of this hunting takes place in these rural areas like you say…
H
Exactly. Where you can’t really catch them, where you don’t have real numbers, where, in these villages, everybody knows everybody else and they protect each other, where the local authorities are sometimes in cahoots with the poachers or they don’t do their job properly, and many other things.
Adi
And here—
H
But let’s turn back to the 3 problems. I want to tell you about the second one, which I planned on leaving at the end but I will tell you about it now because it is highly relevant and you will better understand the situation.
Adi
OK.
H
Problem number 2. You see, in these areas that we talk about, many poachers are actually rangers, or persons from their entourage, and there are quite a few bribes moving around also. But many rangers are actually themselves poachers, they hunt illegally. Many of them hunt alone – I mean, they don’t come together to hunt in groups, these rangers, so that there’s little risk of being caught, or snitched upon. There are… some of them, who might go with a party, together, I don’t say they aren’t, but most of the time the rangers are going alone, or with relatives or persons whom they trust, like neighbors and so on. I know the situation very well. I’ve been around them, many years. This is an enormous problem. In the country [the rural areas of Romania], there are a lot of poachers who work for the Forest Departments. This is not that known. It’s not a secret, but most people don’t know about it.
Adi
It’s bad if many rangers are themselves poachers.
H
Very bad. How the hell are you going to catch these guys? Just think about it – these guys work for the Forest Department, they know the forest extremely well, like those other guys we mentioned, only these guys have an advantage because they wear a badge; they know how many animals there are in each forest, where the cameras are, who are the people who need to be avoided, etc. And they go in their spare time and hunt. Illegally. Many of them hunt illegally. Some of them, believe it or not – and this might sound very strange – hunt both legally and illegally. Because even if you have a license to hunt legally… there’s only so much you are allowed to hunt. But that’s not sufficient. They want more… so they hunt more, on the side.
[a pause]
To be fair, I must also say, from my experience, the rangers who hunt illegally don’t hunt a lot, they don’t hunt that much, I’m saying they aren’t killing a high number of animals per year – but they do hunt, and they do hunt regularly. They are very careful. And they are mostly, how should I say… these are regular rangers who are in charge of looking after the forest. They are paid miserably and their job is to spend a lot of time in the forest.
[a pause]
And the rangers really know how to cover their tracks. I will tell you another thing that only a select few people know about, something that… hasn’t been written about so far in the press, at least to my knowledge. I might give you a bombshell right now. {laughs}
Costin
We are all ears. {laugs}
Adi
{laughs}
H
In some places, like in the village of [redacted] and the forests around [redacted] and [redacted], up until [redacted] and [redacted], and even in [redacted]… in those places, for example, you will often hear that the population of such and such animal collapsed due to disease. Due to swine disease, for example. But in reality, there wasn’t any disease. We’re not talking about a real disease. The truth is that the fools have hunted way too much and sometimes they are covering up their tracks by inventing a disease. To be fair here, this is not a regular thing. The people who actually do this stuff are just a few in the whole country… but you know… it has been done before multiple times, and I was literally shocked when I learned about it.
Costin
I’ve heard about this. Near my hometown, in a forest, on like a hunting “lot” or something like that, whatever it is called, somebody told me – a very skilled poacher, of course, who’s a buddy of mine, not the guy from [redacted] with the cameras, another guy – told me when I asked why aren’t there any boars left in that forest, the forest we were hiking through, he told me that the official reason, so to speak, is that they all died because of the swine disease that hit them hard, but he suspects that there wasn’t any swine disease – I forgot what his exact reasons were, how he came to his conclusion, this guy also dissects animals and probably realized something…
Adi
Aha.
Costin
But I want to say something else before I forget: don’t they take samples and stuff like that to test for swine disease?
H
Sure they do. But those can be forged.
Costin
Really?
H
Yes. You’d be surprised to know how easy it is.
Costin
What do you mean? They change the samples? Don’t they take samples from the corpses in the field, in the forests?
H
Yes. They do take samples. But those can be messed with.
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A section in which H details the procedure has been removed from this transcript.
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Adi
That’s crazy.
Costin
Yeah.
H
When I worked for [redacted], there was a case where these rich guys from Germany came to [redacted] forest, that’s somewhere in Transylvania, and they were hunting wild boar in an area where hunting is forbidden. They bought off the rangers, the police, everyone; but after the hunt somebody snitched on them, someone who had a quarrel with the mayor of a village, who was by the way also bought off, and – I don’t remember who came, people from which department, some people from some department were notified and came to investigate – and when they came they didn’t find them, the Germans had already left, the hunt was long over. But these Germans had a great hunt, and they were the kind of people who hunted all over the world, very expensive hunting trips, I’m talking about tens of thousands of euros per person, and they wanted more. It was a great hunting experience, the guy who was their main man, an experienced hunter himself, took them to hunt very large wild boars that can be extremely dangerous. These boars can kill a man in no time. The Germans shot a really large one – over 300 kilograms. There are just a few places where you can find this heavy a boar in Europe, and the best spots are in the Carpathians. One guy was even hurt by another boar during this hunting trip and had to quit.
Costin
What happened?
H
There was this German who – they were walking slowly through the forest after a boar; they had shot at the boar sometime earlier and now they were walking slowly after him. But they were walking meters apart from each other, I don’t know why, and the forest was dark, with large trees and large bushes with thorns. And a boar suddenly came from one of these bushes and mauled the guy who managed to fire a shot at the boar. He missed, but the boar fled. But before he fled he impaled the guy’s leg and dragged him around a bit, before the shot. The ranger who was with them told me this right after it happened because they initially wanted to call in a helicopter when they reached the canton.
*
A canton (Romanian word) is a building that is used by rangers from the Forest Department.
*
H
They reached the canton and this ranger, who I know very well, asked me for advice. But it wasn’t that bad – the wound. He bled, but not much. One of them was a doctor, so he took care of him on the spot.
Costin
One of the Germans was a doctor?
H
Yes. And this doctor knew what to do. The guy had 2 holes in him, in his leg, from the fangs. The doctor did what he did and took care of him, but, out of precaution I think, they wanted to have a helicopter ready – initially. But it wasn’t needed. That guy didn’t even go to the hospital. The doctor treated him at the canton.
Costin
[to Adi] You know what I’m thinking?
Adi
Yes I do. {laughs}
Costin
Out of curiosity, did the doctor have everything at his disposal to treat that guy there?
H
I don’t know what you mean.
Costin
I mean, that doctor had medicine, bandages, and whatever the fuck, to treat the guy there, so that he wouldn’t have to be taken to the hospital… unless absolutely necessary, of course.
H
Like…
Adi
Was the doctor one of them, like a friend of them, in that group? Or was he a doctor who was brought along just to intervene if something happened, in case someone gets wounded by an animal or something else in the forest?
H
I don’t have this information. The ranger told me that the wounded guy was treated by the doctor in the forest when it happened, and they took him to the canton a few kilometers away where they had a phone signal and they could call somebody, and they called me, later. The ranger called me, at their request. I mean, not at their request, but the Germans knew that the ranger would call me to ask for the helicopter, just in case he got worse. But it was no need, like I said. The wounded guy was treated by the German doctor at the canton – the wounded guy could rest in a bed there. He was wounded, but it wasn’t something awful, though he had holes in his leg. The doctor stitched him right after the mauling, on the spot, and stopped the bleeding and whatever he had to do. He didn’t even go to the hospital. He waited at a hotel until the other guys finished the hunt a few days later and then flew with them to Germany. I don’t know if the doctor stayed with him.
Adi
Interesting.
H
What are you thinking?
Adi
Because… well, wait for a future episode of this series.
Costin
In the future we will talk with a guy who went on a hunting trip with very rich and powerful people—
Adi
Elite motherfuckers.
Costin
Yeah. And he will tell us how it went, what happened on that trip – very interesting stuff. And many Germans went on that trip – you’ll see exactly why – and they too had a doctor with them, who was not a hunter, but went with them… he was paid to accompany them, these hunters. His job was to practice his craft when needed – if needed.
Adi
And this is a great doctor, not some rookie. Actually, there were more, no? Doctors.
Costin
Tune in next time folks. {laughs}
Adi
Tune in.
H
It may be that these rich guys take, I don’t know, extra precautions or…
Adi
You can’t even imagine.
Costin
Let’s get back to your story.
H
Let’s see… what was I talking about?
Adi
The Germans. The illegal hunt.
H
Yes. Oh! So these guys – the Germans – wanted to come next year and they did. To hunt these enormous boars. They, I was told by the ranger, had a great experience, that wounded guy aside. But even he wanted to come. I don’t remember if he came or not, but the same folks came a year later and shot a lot of them. A lot of wild boars. This time they stayed much longer. And what do you know – swine disease mysteriously swept the place after they left, and that’s how they justified the missing boars, because the boars were accounted for. The Forest Department knows – every Forest Department in Romania knows – how many animals are in the forests. An approximation, of course. But they keep stats, is what I’m saying. And in that part the Germans shot a lot on the next hunting trip. They shouldn’t have, but they did. It was out of control. And that’s how they justified the missing boars in that area. I know this from the ranger, who told me everything about it. He’s my guy. I used to be his boss at [redacted].
Costin
Who came up with this plan? Did he tell you?
H
One of the other rangers, one higher in rank.
Adi
How many were there? Rangers. On that trip.
H
I believe there were only 3, including my ranger.
Costin
How much did they pay, do you know?
H
A lot. I know, but I don’t want to say. For the stuff with the fake pest, they paid serious money. To the right people.
Adi
Over 50,000 euros?
H
I don’t want to say, honestly. Much, much more. Don’t—
Costin
OK. In a future episode, the one we mentioned, we’ll tell you exactly how much one of these hunts costs.
Adi
Yeah.
H
This hunting trip with the Germans – it’s something special, a special hunt. It’s much more expensive. And they are the kind of people who buy everyone off before they even set foot in the country.
Adi
But how much does a regular hunting trip cost?
H
Organized legally?
Adi
Yes.
H
It depends. It depends a lot on the package and the type of animal being hunted. There are many companies that sell hunting packages – even foreign ones. There are a few I know that are German companies, since we talked about Germans; which operate on Romanian soil. A hunting trip from a good company that can offer you a great hunting experience can cost you a few thousand euros. But these prices are for foreigners, and, like I said, it depends on many things. Romanians don’t pay that much. They hunt with their own, when they hunt legally, at a much lower cost.
Adi
I see.
Costin
Let’s talk about something else. You told me on another occasion something interesting, something about these forest cameras that I also happen to know about.
H
Yes. These hidden forest cameras are not just used by the Forest Department, but by the poachers themselves.
Adi
They set up cameras too?
H
Oh yeah… a lot of them do. They put cameras in a tree, or someplace hidden, those types of cameras that only activate when there’s movement around them and they see the animals. This is the third thing, the third problem.
Adi
To see where the animals go?
H
Lots of things. But yes, to track their movement usually. To see where they are at. Sometimes they even bait them, but they have to know where they are. This shit usually happens in places where game is scarce due to various reasons. They put cameras and it makes their job so much easier.
Adi
And—
Costin
Let me tell you how it goes, because there are a lot of these guys in the Almăj Valley, where I’m from.
H
There are a lot of these guys all over Romania – sadly.
Costin
Yes. The country is full of them. Here’s how it happens. I’ll give you a specific example from someone I know, but I know many examples. This guy I know is an older hunter who had some health scares lately and he’s not who he was anymore. He’s no longer that agile; he’s no longer fit. When hunting, this counts of course. So he goes into the forest, to the places that he knows, where he hunted before, and sets up cameras there, which are hidden. If the cameras catch something visually, he knows that there are animals there. For example, this summer he put a camera near a stream that only flows in warm weather for some reason. He knows that there is water only in the summer, and that deer know this too. The deer go there in the summer and drink from that stream, but since there are not that many deer left in that forest, only a few of them go, on certain days, not all the time. When he sees on the cameras that the deer have come, the next day he comes and stalks the place with his rifle and shoots as many as available. He has now 3 cameras in various places.
Adi
Sad.
Costin
And this guy doesn’t give a fuck about laws or whatever… he doesn’t even have a hunting license. He’s been hunting illegally since he was a child.
H
You see, nowadays these cameras are getting cheaper and cheaper and they’re affordable. So they buy them.
Adi
And they use them.
H
Yes. And this is also widespread. I know a lot of people who are doing this – and it’s not just old hunters. These cameras simplify the process. When I used to go hunting, there would be days of walking around without catching anything. No trophies. But it was part of the hunt, of the experience. We didn’t know where the animals were. We chased them. And we had rules. It’s sad, like you said [to Adi]. It’s still a new thing though, but many are adopting new technologies to poach more efficiently I suppose. And the poachers’ cameras – they place them not in the deep forests like I said, where there might be the rangers’ cameras as well. They place them in areas nearer to the villages, the fields, even if these areas contain forests… they are not that looked after, surveilled, like the forests in the [national] parks.
Adi
Yeah. You know what I was thinking… about… when they go poaching without cameras. How are they not afraid that someone will hear the gunshots? Rangers, for example. Because I’ve heard a lot of gunshots in my time walking through different forests.
H
Because they know what to do. They go hunting, and let’s say that they see a deer and shoot it dead. They make sure that there’s nobody around before and after the shot. But let’s say that there’s a ranger around, somehow he got there. He can only catch them if he’s near the poachers; otherwise, they would simply run away. And they have their getaway paths. They can hide their guns on the spot – throw them in a bush for example, or something else – and flee the scene.
Adi
Aha.
Costin
It’s hard to catch anyone in a forest. And the forest is a great place to hide a weapon.
Adi
Yeah, that’s true.
Costin
Like it happened to me last month. You [to Adi] know the story, with the guy with the red shirt.
Adi
Oh. [to H] He caught some poachers in the act.
Costin
Let me just say: I saw a lot of them this summer – a lot of them! – because I hiked a lot through the forest this summer. But this time, near my place, on a patch of land that I own near the forest, a few kilometers away from Bozovici [commune in Romania], I saw one day when I was working there a deer near the edge of the forest and it went into the forest after he saw me. I pulled my phone and went after him to take a picture, and I was about… I’d say, 300 meters into the forest, when I heard a dog barking. Then another bark. For a moment, I thought that there were many dogs, but I couldn’t tell. I still don’t know how many there were, but there was at least one dog. And I heard the bark closer and closer, coming near me, and I didn’t know what to do. My plan was to climb a nearby tree if the dog was aggressive. And then, suddenly, I see a bush in front of me moving and out of it jumped this deer and went straight past me. About 2 meters away. And the dogs after the deer. At that moment I realized that the dog – or dogs, I never saw them, just heard them – was chasing the deer in my direction. Right after this I hear some voices. I turned toward a hill on my right that didn’t have any trees on it, it was like a meadow, and I see 2 men walking casually and talking to each other, one of them had something on his shoulder that looked like a rifle – but I couldn’t tell for sure, to be honest. They were maybe 100 meters away – actually less than that – on this hill. And the barks grew louder and louder. I knew now who they were. I screamed at the top of my lungs “Hey!” so that they would hear me, and one of them, who had a red shirt on, turned his face toward me, noticed me, and ran away immediately after he saw me, in the opposite direction; and the dog ran away after them.
H
That’s the right thing to do in these situations, to scream something because they can shoot you unintentionally.
Costin
That’s what I was afraid of – that they might shoot at this deer and hit me. But these guys weren’t as sophisticated, let me say this. They are from the younger generation, I think I know who they are; they’re not that familiar with the area and they were sent by somebody who owns that land, though hunting is not permitted even if it is his land there.
Adi
Yeah. How many have died like this?
H
Not that many, fortunately.
Costin
Don’t get me started. It’s a miracle that there are only a few accidental shootings…
H
Miracle indeed. For some reason, with all the poaching going on in Romania, there should be a lot of shootings and deaths – but no.
Adi
Thank God. And I’ll tell you my story also – I have a bunch of them actually. You don’t even know how many times I heard gunshots in the forest – because I also like to hike, and I hike a lot through the mountains of Transylvania. But there was this one time when I was somewhere, in a forest not far from Săsciori [commune in Romania] where I heard gunshot after gunshot for 10 minutes straight. I thought that there was something else, but some of the locals who I knew told me that they were just hunting… some poachers. And the rangers – of course – haven’t done anything about it. This was years ago, but I’ve heard gunshots many, many times, all over Transylvania where I hike. Yes, it’s a miracle that there aren’t many accidents with actual shootings…
H
It’s a great thing. But you know, I’ll tell you something… if there were many deaths from poaching, there would be no more poaching – or at least there would be only a small amount of poaching left. They would find a solution. Sadly, only tragedies set the wheels in motion in this country.
★
To be continued.
