May 30, 2011

a bit to close for comfort

I wrote about it before, it\s pure nature around us.

Even while it's only ten minutes down to the more civilised coast, where we do our daily shopping, here, up the mountain, into our little valley, it's truly nature.

To prove this statement (who believes me anyhow), here's wat just a day ago was a wild living jackal, that came a bit to close for comfort.

Hunters here are truly excellent hunters, they know their surroundings very well and the ones I know don't need binoculars to see details I will never ever see.

Our friend Pero, about daily checks around in the fields, the woods and on the slopes of the mountainridge (Omiska Dinara) between us and the sea.

And however it's known that jackals live in Croatia (on Peljesac for instance), it's rather uncommon to see them here, as it may be nature all around here, there are people living here too in small villages, so some disturbance occurs.

Nevertheless recently a bear seems to have been spotted (extremely unusual here), but our area is connected to larger areas like Biokovo and Mosor, and even the hinterland is interconnected, so anything can migrate into our area and "try to make a living".

Some however, are not welcome, as bears and jackals are risky and a problem to farm animals and even humans.
Bears, wolves and lynx are protected by law, jackals and foxes lack that protection.

Being an expat from the Netherlands where nature is less than nothing, I truly like to know these animals occur in the wild, but than, I am a romantic guy who loves nature in every aspect, being snake, bird, fish or flower.

So to me a dead jackal is a sad thing, but I can imagine people here don't want nature to be to close.
We call that NIMBY (not in my back yard), and used to shout that to those politicians who wanted to "protect" us with atomic bombs.

Still, it's a dead animal and I rather see them alive, but better to protect yourselve with a simple selective bullit than with an atomic bomb, or those horrible landmines that are still threatening many innocent people on the Balkan today (in parts of Croatia and Bosnia).
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