Saturday, February 19, 2011

Monday, February 7, 2011

Mr. Sneaky Evildoer.




This is Mr. Sneaky Evildoer. He lives near the Bogachevsky-Kronotsky estuary, in the best place there can be for the happy fox life. Abundance of fish, swans, ducks around makes the life easy. All the foxes of the Kronotsky Nature Reserve would love to live here… But Mr. Evildoer does not allow them. He is a dominant male, the strongest and the smartest of local foxes, so he imposes his will on others.

Sometimes he tries to dictate his wishes to people. As for me, he does not allow me to stay overnight at the ranger station at the estuary. How does he manage to achieve this – I’ll tell you later, especially if I will be lucky enough to photograph his evil actions.

But the story with me - it’s nothing compared to what Mr. Sneaky Evildoer did to special task force team of the reserve! These men are the elite of the Kronotsky reserve protection force against poaching and other violations. They can live in the snow holes for weeks. On tiny boats they go into the open ocean during storms. They capture armed poacher gangs at night. Tough guys, bears always give them right of way when their paths meet… But Mr. Evildoer did not like it when they appeared at the station in the estuary. While the boys were cooking dinner inside the cabin, the fox has disappeared with … their weatherproof gore-tex boots. He did not take all of them, just one shoe from each person’s pair. Those boots were never found!

Original post is by Igor Shpilenok (both text & images) in Russian here.