In Ukraine, Wartime Brings Out The Wolves
USPENIVKA, Ukraine — Aleksandr Podlesnyi saw the lunge before he recognized the shape as a wolf.
His first thought was, Where did you come from?
As the wolf clamped onto his arm, his second thought was, I will kill him or he will kill me.
Mr. Podlesnyi, 41, had emerged from his outhouse early on December 9 and found himself becoming an extreme example of the unintended consequences of a war that has simmered for four years in eastern Ukraine between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists.
Hunting is prohibited in areas extending as far as 60 kilometers from the front line to minimize confusion about who is shooting at what target. As a result, prey like pheasants and hares are proliferating. And predators like foxes and wolves are appearing in greater numbers.
A neighbor said he had rushed to Mr. Podlesnyi’s aid and used a tire iron to help pry open the wolf’s jaws. Then a soldier from a garrison across the street rushed over and shot the animal twice in the head, killing it. The wolf, which attacked other animals in the neighborhood that morning, was most likely rabid, but no autopsy was performed, according to the chief veterinary official in the area. “War turns brother against brother and affects everyone and everything,” Mr. Podlesnyi said.
Attacks on villagers remain rare on the steppe in eastern Ukraine, and some efforts are being permitted to vaccinate predatory animals.
But villagers and hunting officials express concern for the safety of their children, pets and barnyard animals. In Mykolaipillya, residents say wolves are suspected of killing nine dogs in February and March.
Before the war began in 2014, local hunting societies issued permits for, say, a certain number of pheasants or hares to be shot. Villagers say they were permitted to kill an unlimited number of foxes, which are considered pests, and also wolves, though they were rarely seen.
Now there are approximately 300 wolves in the Donetsk region, about 100 more than before the war, said Aleksandr Bognanov, head of a local hunting society.
It is a huge risk for civilians to walk in a field carrying a rifle during wartime. They might step on a mine or be shot by snipers, said Viktor Storozhenko, the head of the department of forestry and hunting in Donetsk, where much of the fighting has occurred.
Hunting officials said the population of foxes had increased as much as fourfold in eastern Ukraine.
Last November, Nikolai Yatsura walked to the lake in the village of Zvirove, expecting to see how the fish were biting. Instead, he found out how the foxes were biting.
Mr. Yatsura, 78, said he saw an animal running toward him and tried to fend it off with his cap, then wrestled with it, losing the tip of his left pinkie before killing the fox.
“He choked it,” Sergey Lazorenko, the chief veterinary officer of the region, said. The fox carried rabies, Mr. Lazorenko said, though Mr. Yatsura said he was not infected.
Hunting organizations say they are attempting to prevent an outbreak of rabies spread by the foxes.
“So far we are coping,” said Igor Savon, the head of the hunting and fishing society in Slovyansk.
Yet if efforts to control the population of wild carnivores are further reduced, or halted altogether, he said, “It will be an uncontrolled problem.”