During winter, wild animals may end up starving. There's some stuff around, like treebark, frozen grass under the snow. Wild boars dig up leftover potatoes from fields, deer and rabbits come near houses and munch on young trees that people have planted a year before... But near the spring it's pretty hard as most of the resources are exhausted. Predators (wolves, foxes, lynx) are hungry, too, unless sleeping as bears do.
That is why humans, mostly represented by the hunting club members, serve the forest dwellers the high cuisine of potatoes, perfectly dryed hay and selected branches from young apple trees. Special animal feeding "restaurants" are built.
The whole are of Kääpa (Välgi) nature reserve is 2039,8ha of land plus 256,4ha of water. By the way, in spring, parts of the reserve are off limits for the man kind (besides authorised personnel) as the local wild bunch is making babies.
Photos by Vahur Afanasjev 7 March 2014, Välgi nature reservoir.
