SG: Which animals have died out lately in the forest?
AW: The capercaillie has died out, the bears have disappeared; we used to have rollers along the edges of the forest – they’re a colourful sort of bird – but there aren’t any anymore. But we’re seeing extinction all the time. We used to have lapwings outside our house – now they’re gone. They vanished gradually: First, there were a few pair, then only one, then one, but not each year, and now there aren’t any at all. We all got used to extinction happening suddenly: BOOM! The last rhino, the last polar bear, but that’s not how it happens. People often don’t notice extinction. I’m going to write an article about wild hamsters which are dying out everywhere. It appeared that they were doing OK in Russia because you’ve got the steppes, but climate changes are affecting them greatly. This extinction is going unnoticed: People think that there are hamsters and later they realise that the last time they actually saw one was two or three years ago, maybe five years ago… It’s the same in the forest.
SG: But why are there more of them than in the past?
AW: There are more bison, but, if we look at it from the proper perspective, there are more of them in relation to what there was fifty years ago, but not a thousand years ago. For a species, a thousand or two thousand years is important. The beavers have returned, but there still aren’t as many as there were a thousand years ago. We have to be careful: For now, on a global scale, we have a giant dying-off which is taking place in salami slices. We slice it very thin and it always seems to us that there are a lot of them. It happens very fast, but not on a human scale, because we keep shifting our point of view. A thousand years ago, a forest without bison was strange; now, a forest with bison is strange.
SG: Have you ever had dangerous situations with animals?
AW: Once or twice, I was chased by bison, but, generally speaking, no. Except for that wasp.
SG: Can animals react aggressively when you take their picture?
AW: When photographing animals, the fundamental principle is not to bother our subjects. When I photograph bison, I want them to be as relaxed as possible. If they’re nervous, I just move away.
SG: By photographing animals, aren’t we harming them?
AW: Sometimes. If you want to photograph an owl, but you don’t want to wander through the forest, you whistle for it. The owl will react to that, because it thinks you are a rival. And it might be that, at that time, the owl happens to be feeding her young. Then the owl will defensively react to our whistling, looking for us and becoming agitated. So we get a photo of an angry, puffed-up owl and everyone on Facebook will be thrilled. If one photographer comes and does that and then a second and then a third, it can have a negative impact on the owl. People want to photograph wolves, but they don’t want to go to the trouble of looking for them, so they just toss out a chunk of meat. The wolves get accustomed to the fact that they’ll get food from humans, so they might then go into a village looking for people and make problems. Then there’s a scandal: the wolves have bit our dog or our chickens. Or here: I’m going to toss seed to the birds, but, if I toss them something that isn’t good for them, they’re going to have problems.
SG: Lots of people still don’t believe that you shouldn’t feed birds bread.
AW: You shouldn’t, because it contains salt and such. It’s not that they could choke, but salt has a very bad effect on birds’ kidneys. Bread can also ferment and then it becomes toxic to them. You can supposedly feed ducks bread, but it has to be fairly dry, sliced, white, and moreover they have to eat it all at once. It would be better to feed them some kind of oat flakes and, for the tits, the best thing is sunflower.
SG: Do they even need to be fed?