EVENTS/NEWS / Beaver safari in the Lower Ciuc Basin
08 may 2013 - no commentsThe ACCENT GeoEcological Organization finished the first activity of the project, titled: “WORKING TOGETHER WE CAN ACHIEVE MORE FOR THE NATURE!”. The goal of this project was to create a positive attitude against beavers (Castor fiber), recently reintroduced in this area, among the people who live near to the Lower Ciuc Basin Natura 2000 Site. This could be the first important step towards the long term conservation of this species in this area.
This project was started with extracurricular activities, indoor and outdoor, in 6 general schools situated in the Lower Ciuc Basin: “Jókai Mór” from Tusnad Spa, “Imets Fülöp Jákó” from Tuşnad community (Tuşnad Nou and Tuşnad Sat villages), “Endes József” from Sânsimion community, “Arany János” from Sântimbru community and “Vitos Mózes” from Sâncrăieni community.
During the indoor activities, in front of the public, it was presented the beaver. There were mentioned those old times, when the beavers were present in this area and those when they disappeared. After this sad event, they studied the reintroduction of the beavers and then the children got to know this animal closely and in detail, realizing that beavers are rodents and they don’t eat fish, so they dispelled the delusions, which resulted a lot of animal victims caused by the fisherman. Nowadays the beavers occupied almost all the suitable habitats for them in the Ciuc Basin. These animals form their environment continuously by constructing dams and lodges on the surface. The students also got to know that the beavers 2 hours after they were born, already swim and after 3 weeks they eat tree bark. This getting acquainted was completed with visual elements, like skull of the beaver and different trees nibbled by beavers. At the end of this presentation the children learned about professional solution for those cases when the beavers get in trouble with humans.
After a short break of refreshing and cake, the children went to the closest stream to look for beaver tracks. The student found easily the tracks of the beaver: foot-prints, nibbled twigs, broken holes on the riverside etc. They observed carefully and also took pictures. In most cases the outdoor activities happened on the riverside of the Olt, where the “explorers” also found unexpected, awkward phenomenon like rubbish heaps and cut-out trees on both side of the riverside. Beside these, there was a smoke, burning the pastures being the most preferred way to clean it in this area. It is really hard to teach for children the right way in school, if they see the oppisite when they leave it. During outdoor activities another delusion was dispelled, which said that the beavers destroy the vegetation and because of them the trees disappear from the riverside. It turned out, that this is happening because of the people, who are taking the trees cut by the beavers, so they need to cut more to have food and wood material for the whole family. During the day it is seen half cut and peeled trees which suggests that beavers are wasting and damaging, but if we would watch them for longer, we would see what happens with the tree cut by them, in case people are not taking from them and we would form a totally different opinion about them.
After the children learned a lot about beavers, theoretically and practically too, they got another task to complete: during 2-3 weeks they have to take photos of beaver’s foot prints, trees and twigs nibbled by beavers, dams or the animal, than on 5th May the Organization will collect one photo from each child and will organize a photo contest on the official Facebook site of the Organization. Everyone will take part with only one photo in this contest, which will promote the beavers, the schools, the students and the Lower Ciuc Basin Natura 2000 site. We hope that the message of this contest will reach a lot of people, but if not, than the 1000 informative posters printed after the contest and the 2000 pieces of badges with the image of the beaver, will fill this gap. On these informative posters the photos from the contest will illustrate the descriptive materials about beavers.
This project is financed by the Environmental Partnership Foundation and Mol Romania, the partners in this project are the following general schools: “Jókai Mór” from Tusnad Spa, “Imets Fülöp Jákó” from Tuşnad community (Tuşnad Nou and Tuşnad Sat villages), “Endes József” from Sânsimion community, “Arany János” from Sântimbru community and “Vitos Mózes” from Sâncrăieni community.
Implementation period: April 15th - September 15th 2013
For more information contact:
IMECS István, Project Coordinator
Mobil: 0743 775 213
E-mail: imecs.istvan17@gmail.com
PILBÁTH G. Attila, Project Asisstant
Mobil: 0723 357 650
E-mail: a.pilbath@yahoo.com
The official Facebook site of the Organization
ACCENT GeoEcological Organization
Custodian of the Lower Ciuc Basin Natura 2000 Site
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