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The Fox: From Fable To Reality

see image A widely-spread carnivorous mammal, the fox has been drawn to the attention of the people ever since early Antiquity, remaining throughout the ages the most steadfast symbol of slyness, cunningness, cruelty and cynicism. Totemic animals from one region in the

Slow Beasts, Easy Life

See Gallery One would wonder why the ox is so preferred by most of the Romanian landscape painters at the turn of the century. One reason is a name, Barbizon. Both Nicolae Grigorescu and Ion Andreescu, the leaders of the generation, were configuring their artistic project

Surrogate Animals

When I was little, during Ceausescu's time, I was lucky to have a godmother in Germany whose mother, Oca, not only was an ideal nanny but she also used to send me wonderful things, which went far beyond a socialist child's imagination. That is how, for my sixth

The Death of Castor

A few years ago, on a day in September, I had been walking alone and aimlessly through the streets, seized by an unutterable wanderlust triggered by the infinite blue of the sky and the dizzying charm of autumn when, all of a sudden, at a crossroads, I came up against the

Butterfly Collections From Transylvania

 see also Gallery The Lepidoptera Collection from Transylvania and the Dr. Daniel Czekelius Palearctic Lepidoptera Collection The collections contain macro- and microlepidoptera from Transylvania numbering 7,162 specimens, as well as a number of 6,929 palearctic species.

Restrictions In The Retezat National Park

Rhododendron on Bucura lakeshore by Cristina LazaroniRestrictions have their place in a national parkMany people know why there are restrictions in a national park and agree with them. I have received various questions from tourists wanting to know why, in the Retezat National

Xylobiont Coleopterans

Can forests of the Carpathians be a reference point for the virgin forests of the Central Europe? The proof for this is represented by xylobiont Coleopterans Over recent years many German experts specialising in forestry have visited forests in Romania and Ukraine. On these

The Pig Way

see Gallery The Story of the Pig is one of Ion Creanga's loveliest stories. The story of the pig in contemporary Romanian art is, in its turn, one of the most exciting. The image of the pig in current art ranks, unexpectedly, among the most significant and consistent

Biodiversity Protection Beyond 2010

The real chance that Romania has to shelter the most numerous populations of bears, wolves, chamois and lynxes (almost 33,800 species of animals, out of which 33,085 are invertebrate and 707 are vertebrate) is what inspired us to extend this invitation to the world. The

Hunting Stories Are From God

The apprentice I have already told you about had a whole year's hunting under his belt. Quite a poor campaign it had been, with only a few victories, yet rich in teaching and personal observation. The woodcocks darted through the twilight sky of a meadow like huge bats;

The Dog

They say Elena Ceauşescu used to watch porn films and make love with Şarona and Corbu. The two labradors only ate real sausages, in contempt of a whole nation that didn't even know the taste of meat, gorged as they were with sausages made of soy, grissle and mouse

The Hateg Country Dinosaurs Geo-park

The Hateg Country Dinosaurs Geo-park ( is, above all, the place where history may be studied in all of its layers, but also an area where palaeontologists are on a double watch – for fossils and for dinosaur bone thieves. In 1975, when the representatives of the Bucharest