We were picked up at 7.15 this morning by Sophie and Jakob, and went to help them with the famous ponds. We didn’t know much about them this morning but we do now!

We drove through small forested valleys in the misty sunshine. As we came around one corner we saw a pack of wild boar with loads of piglets in tow heading towards the car. Apparently they get fed here, so when they see the pick-up truck they always head over in the hope of a free breakfast. We had been told that the wild boar here have a reproduction rate of 230% per year, and seeing all those piglets confirmed it for us. The boar are fed to stop them destroying crops over the winter, which keeps them happy, and also keeps the hunters happy, so everyone’s happy as far as I can tell. Except the ones that get shot I suppose.

Wild boar with piglets

We were heading along a forestry track when Jakob spotted a baby roe deer looking at us through the trees. It was a great safari!

Baby roe deer

When we arrived we found a small stream and several shallow hand-dug ponds, which were absolutely full of Elodea – a water plant that was introduced to Europe from America in 1836 and quickly spread across the continent, choking slow-moving waterways, outcompeting native species and removing nutrients from the system.

The job for the morning was to remove the Elodea, and another unwanted species – the grass in the picture – from the pond. We got some sexy waders and a rake each, and in we went!

Looking good!

It was hard work raking up big clumps of Elodea, checking them for fish and invertebrates, then chucking the plant material up on the bank. We could all see it was a pretty futile effort in the long run. Elodea will root from fragments of material, and there was no way we were going to get rid of all of it from the pond. I expect some of the stuff we chucked up the bank will just fall back in if it rains in the next few days as well. It’s a breathing space at best, and at worst we just went in and wrecked whatever habitat there was in the pond by raking through the bottom and removing all the hiding places. On the other hand if the Elodea is left to dominate the pond, it will choke out everything else anyway! Tough problem, but an interesting one!

Before

During

After

Once we’d finished dredging the pond we went back to the Prince’s castle where Jakob and Sophie are staying for Sophie to swap cars. It was pretty spectacular, all those bread trees obviously paid off!

The Prince’s residence

We went back to Olaf’s place to drop off the tools, and took the chance for a photo. Olaf says he can’t smile unless he’s had a couple of beers, but I think he almost managed it here!

Jakob, Sophie, Anna and Olaf

We said bye to the interns and wished them luck with their year working in the forest. I’m slightly jealous of them, although I don’t envy all the pond clearing they’ll have to do. It reminded me a bit of the movie Holes.

Anna and I went back to the campsite for lunch, after which Olaf came to collect us and took us to Wisent Welt for the bison tour. We met 30 employees of the local water company who were on a work day out. We wandered round the enclosure with Olaf telling us about the history of the area. It was totally deforested for timber and charcoal burning, and was subsequently replanted with spruce and beech for timber. Now, the spruce is still dominant but there are some areas where mixed forest is being allowed to come back.

As we got near the end of the walk we came across the bison relaxing in the shade in a small valley. It was great to see them again after the Netherlands experience, although it was different to have a fence in between you and the animals. The bull was obviously massive, but somehow looked smaller behind the fence. I think it’s a good stepping stone for people to start to accept these animals though – especially to help people be less afraid. The bison are so chilled out, they didn’t really take any notice of us at all, although we got quite close. I think the biggest problem will be that people try to feed them!

Big bull

Tourist

After saying goodbye to our tour-mates we sat down for a beer and a chat with Olaf and the other Bison Ranger, Joachim. I was interested to know Joachim’s career path since Bison Ranger seems a bit of a niche; it turned out he worked with big farm animals before. We asked Joachim how he saw the bison project developing now that a population has been released into the wild here. He said that he hoped they would just become part of the fauna of Germany, like the red deer and wild boar. He thinks this would have to include hunting of the bison. Because the bison tend to form herds of females that are serviced by only one bull, the breeding programmes at the moment often have a surplus of young bulls. He thinks this will also be the case in the wild. So the young bulls will be good candidates for population control through hunting. We wondered what would have happened to those young bulls historically, whether they might form bachelor groups, but the Rangers didn’t know. We also asked about damage to property, and Joachim said that the red deer already cause some damage, but because they are hunted, people don’t tend to mind too much. He thinks this will eventually be the same with the bison.

Been a tough week!

We asked Olaf about the ponds, who built them and why. He said that the Prince (who is now in his eighties) was sent to Sweden during the war, where he saw a lot of ponds and bird life. When he came home he decided he wanted the same thing, so he started digging. Olaf said that when he started work as a lumberjack around 35 years ago he saw a guy digging in the woods with a spade. He asked his colleagues “Who’s that idiot?” to be told “Shhh, that’s your Prince!”. When the Prince’s son was old enough he was taken to the woods to help digging “whether he liked it or no”. The Prince has had a great result from his ponds; the black stork has now returned to the area and there are now six breeding pairs. All he has to do now is figure out how to get rid of the waterweed….

After our beer, Olaf showed us the visitor centre and seminar room, which is decorated with paintings done by Olaf’s father. They’re really good! Apparently there isn’t much work as a lumberjack over winter, so Olaf’s dad started painting, and now 50 years later he’s great! Olaf said that his dad has massive chunky workman’s fingers, but when people ask how he can paint with those hands he says “I use a brush….”.

We got dropped at our campsite by Olaf and his wife, and decided it’d be rude not to have another beer. So that was four beers before dinner. Tomorrow is the festival for the area’s shooting (not hunting) clubs in town so we agreed to meet up again at midday to watch the procession. Now we just have to stagger to the tent.

– Dave

I’ve been on a boat in the Netherlands for the last few days seeing my mates from home. It’s been awesome; one of them is finally near home after a year and a half travelling, another managed to tear himself away from his young family for a few days and another, who is a teacher, used some of his precious summer holiday to come out. Nothing’s changed when we meet up, except there are more stories to tell, more “wisdom” to share and more hilarious injuries / mishap. Good times.

Yesterday Anna and I met up again in Bad Berleburg, Germany. It took me 9 hours on four trains to get here, although I guess that beats five days cycling! It was worth it though, I have to admit I did miss her a bit.

This morning we went to meet Coralie at her office in Bad Berleburg. Coralie is the Bison Researcher at Wisent Welt (Bison World). Wisent Welt is a project that has re-introduced European Bison into a managed-forest environment here in western Germany. The idea came from Prince Richard Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg who owns a large part of the land in this district and decided it would be better with bison on it. In 2010 the first bison were introduced to the forest, where they were kept within a fenced enclosure. In 2013, a group of eight bison were released from the enclosure into the wild.

The first stage of the project is coming to a close, and Coralie is really busy writing up the project report. She still found time to spend the morning with us explaining the project and talking through some of the successes and challenges that the bison have presented. It was really interesting and I wish I could remember it all, but here are some of the highlights.

The project area is very close to the border of two districts. There was broad approval of the project from the district where the Prince lives. In the neighbouring district, approval was markedly less, but still 50% of people asked were in favour. Tourists are over 95% in approval.

Since the release of the bison into the wild there have been some conflicts with local landowners. Bison like to eat the bark of trees, and when people are growing trees for timber they prefer the bark to stay on. In each year since the release, there have been about €10,000 paid out in damages from the bison. There are no figures yet to show how this matches up to the tourist revenue generated from the bison, but I suspect the tourists are bringing in more. I guess the trick is to make the bison pay in all sectors of the economy, rather than costing in one and paying in another.

The reintroduction of the bison has been monitored to detect potential impacts on other species in the area. There have been no negative impacts documented so far. In a small positive impact, the bison dung  have been shown to support a higher population of dung beetles than is supported by the domestic and other wild herbivores in the area.

After lunch Coralie had to go back to her report, so we got on the bikes and cycled to Wingeshausen, which is where we will camp for the next few days. We’re just outside the village across the road from a hotel and next to the trout ponds! We met up with Olaf, who is one of the Rangers here and will be showing us round for the next few days. After saying hello he left us to ourselves, so we got some dinner and an early night, expecting to be put to work tomorrow.

– Dave

On our last day at the park, we arrived in the office at 8:30am to meet Ester and get involved in some top-secret activities. Two of the male bison are being exported to another project on Monday. (This is now Monday in the past, so we’re all clear to let the cat out the bag – or the bison out of the Netherlands!) The movement is being kept hush to allow it to happen in peace, away from press and public. It’s the first time they’re doing this type of transport, so being calm on the day is important. The reason the two males are being moved is to prevent in-breeding in the small herd. In their enclosed environment, with no opportunity to move away and find other females to mate with, the bulls would end up fathering calves with their own mothers and sisters. Eek.

So the two males (which are 4 and 5 years old) were tranquilised two weeks ago and moved to a new holding pen. They spend two weeks in the pen, acclimatising to the environment. There is a narrow corridor that they will have to walk along to be loaded onto the transport truck, and they have been led along it every few days to get them used to it. Ester was taking us for another practice round.

We got in the van and headed into the park, Ester cutting three juicy looking branches on the way to give the bison a break from eating hay. We arrived at the pen and Ester told us a bit about the design. There isn’t a lot of knowledge on the moving of European bison – there were only about 50 animals left at one time! And although there are now around 5,000 across Europe, there are very few that are kept in a ‘natural’ way, so best practice guidelines on managing animals like the ones in Holland are lacking. Many land owners with European bison feed them over winter, so they could be said to be partially domesticated. The bison here in Holland are never fed except when they have to be moved. So the design and use of the pen was taken from North America, and ranchers’ experiences with their own North American bison.

Ester with bison biscuits

There is an enclosure where the animals hang out and where they are provided with food and water. From there, a corridor leads around in a semi-circle, leading back to that same enclosure. The bison can be enticed in with tasty treats or shooed in by someone walking towards them. They walk around the narrow corridor, arrive back where they started and are none the worse off for it. So they don’t have any qualms about going down the corridor.

Up close and personal with the bison

When they are eventually ready for transport, a gate is moved and the corridor no longer leads back to the enclosure but into the back of a truck. Sneaky!

We put out the branches to entice them into the corridor, then Ester had to gently shoo them in because apparently they weren’t hungry. Once they were in the corridor, I closed a big sliding door and they walked around to go back into the holding pen. I think they were back inside before I’d even finished closing the door! Speedy bison.

Munch munch

Mission successfully completed, we headed back to the office. Dave and I had an appointment with a local journalist, which Yvonne had organised! We had a chat with him, got our picture taken and wondered whether we were going to appear in the newpaper the next day…

Picture with Yvonne before she went home – bye, it’s been a pleasure!

That evening, we were told that the village just to the north of the National Park is in the middle of their week-long annual village festival. Did we want to go along? Dave didn’t need to be asked twice and he convinced me to go even though I was feeling tired and antisocial by the end of the working day!

We cycled through the park, my need for dinner becoming more and more urgent following a day of very little food. “Dave, I’m literally dying of starvation here”, I proclaimed melodramatically, before holding onto his rucksack to get towed along for a bit.

When we arrived at the festival, we locked our bikes to a wire fence, met Ester and her husband and headed straight for a pizza house! One pizza and one beer later and I was enthusiastically engaged in the conversation. A band started playing by our table and we enjoyed watching the singer pour out his soul in a pair of neon pink leggings. Then the rest of the group appeared and took us over to the main stage, where a fantastic covers band was playing. Eight beers later, around 11pm, we were all clustered near the main stage, singing, dancing, bouncing, drinking and chatting with each other. They were such a lovely group of people and it was a fabulous evening.

One of the more exuberant bands

Around midnight in the little village

Just after midnight, everyone from the project got emailed the journalist’s article about us, which was going to press the next morning!  The owner of the Highland cows kindly translated it for me and we got to look at the lovely picture.

HaarlemsDagblad-Anna_and_Dave-August2015

Coming up to 1am, we decided to head back. Ester and Jesus live in the National Park (lucky bastards) about half way back to our campsite. Dave and I didn’t have lights with us, and Ester’s lights didn’t work, so the four of us followed one little wobbly light along the unlit cycle path through the forest. It was cloudy and the moon was nowhere to be seen, but we managed to stay on the trail, mostly. Ester fell off at one point, for no other reason than she couldn’t maintain her balance any longer! Giggling, she got back on and off we went again. When we made it to their place, they invited us to stay over – in a bed, no less! I would have taken them up on the offer, but if we went home, we got to ride through the rest of the park in the dark… and that was an appealing prospect. It was such a peaceful night, calm and quiet and warm. I’d been harping on about a night walk all week and here was our chance to be out at night!

So off we went, away from the welcoming lights of their house and into the dark woods. After a minute or so, my eyes starting to get accustomed to the dark and I could make out the trail and the sky above the trees. Then we emerged from the forest and were out in the dunes, with much better visibility, although everything remained either dark grey or really dark grey. There were some horses on the trail and we managed to avoid hitting into any of them on the way! Then eventually we emerged onto the road at the end of the park and headed to the campsite and collapsed into bed – what a day!

• Anna

This morning we went into the reserve with Tariq, a student who is doing an internship with PWN over the summer. The task for the day was to find the bison herd, identify the female who wears the GPS collar, and record her activity throughout the day. The GPS collar has an accelerometer in it, which records the movements of the animal’s head. Tariq’s research will match up the data that the collar records with the actual observed behavior, so that in future the researchers will be able to tell what the animal is doing just by looking at the data from the collar. This will let them build up a good picture of bison behaviour and feeding patterns when they are not being directly observed.

Tariq told us his special method for finding the bison, which is to “follow the shit” (ssh, don’t tell anyone). We were walking for about 20 minutes when we stumbled on them lying in a small copse. They’re so hard to see! Unfortunately they were surprised to see us too, and soon moved off. This was the pattern for most of the morning, us catching up to them, and them moving off within five minutes! It was hot so they wanted to stay in the trees, but when they are in the trees they are more wary and you can’t get as close.

Bison hanging out in the woods

The woods were nice for us to give us some shade, but the ticks there were insane! Anna’s trousers were covered, and a few time Tariq stopped to pull off his wellies and search for ticks on his ankles. It’s awful, they’re individually easy to brush off, but there were so many, a proper swarm. If they bite you they bury their heads in your skin, so they’re a pain to get rid of. They also have a habit of climbing up your clothes or legs until they find a nice soft bit to bury themselves in. Nice. They can also give you Lyme disease, which is treatable if you catch it early, but still not exactly on the bucket list. (You can find out more about ticks and Lyme disease here: http://treesforlife.org.uk/forest/species-profiles/deer-tick/#.)

Eventually we managed to get a good view of the bison at a distance that they were happy with, so we settled down for some observation. Tariq heard something overhead and we all looked up to see a pine marten carrying some prey through the treetops. It went right above us and settled down for lunch in a tree close by. It was awesome to see it, they are pretty rare in the Netherlands (and in the UK), I’ve never seen one before, so I couldn’t believe my luck. We managed to snap one decent picture of the slippery bugger.

Pine marten!

The bison herd finally moved out of the forest, but they were too quick for us to follow so we decided to stop for lunch. After that we went back to the office to swap guides. Dario is a volunteer at the project, he has done three internships with PWN and is now hoping to get a job there, so he is volunteering to keep in touch, and spend time in the reserve. He’s also running his own gardening and renovation business to make money. Such dedication!

We went back into the park with Dario to check some camera traps. These are cameras that can be left outside and are activated by heat or movement (or a combination of both). This is another brilliant way to get great data on the fauna of an area without disturbing them. In the Faia Brava reserve in Portugal they got a positive identification of the first roe deer in the reserve using a camera trap. Dario showed us some of the footage that has been captured in the reserve, we saw badgers, foxes, fallow deer and several bird species. It’s different from seeing these animals directly because they don’t know they’re being watched so they behave naturally.

The job for the afternoon was to go round and change the batteries in the camera traps. It was another good excuse to walk around in the sunshine and chat to someone who loves the reserve!

Dario at work

One of the camera traps was positioned right next to a massive tree that had come down in the storm last week; it had a lucky escape! Sadly the camera didn’t capture the tree falling, but it had recorded a few up close and personal visits from the Konik horses and fallow deer!

When we’d finished in the park we had a quick shower then went to the beach for dinner and drinks with some of the team. We chatted to Esther, who is Yvone’s colleague on the bison project, and Ruud who is one of the rangers in the reserve. He’s worked in the park for 30 years, and obviously loves it!

When we got home we had to have one last tick-searching session in the tent. Anna found two on me, but she was clean, which is good. You need to remove ticks within 24 hours to minimise your chance of contracting Lyme disease so it’s important that you check yourself thoroughly after a walk in the long grass or bracken!

It was amazing to meet so many people today who are absolutely loving what they do! Dario likes it so much he’s prepared to stick around and volunteer in the hope that a job will come up. I hope it does, he deserves it.

– Dave