Letea Forest

Letea Forest
Letea Forest Nature Reserve
Coordinates: 45 ° 17 ′ 10 ″  N , 29 ° 31 ′ 26.4 ″  E
Location:	Tulcea , Romania
Next city:	Sulina
Surface:	52.46 km²
Founding:	1990

The Letea Forest ( Romanian Pădurea Letea ) is located on the area of ​​the municipality of CA Rosetti in the Tulcea district of the Romanian Dobruja in the north-eastern Danube Delta between the Chilia and Sulina river arms . It is the northernmost subtropical forest in Europe and the oldest nature reserve in Romania . Parts of the forest have been under nature protection since 1930 . In 1990 the Letea Forest was declared a protected area in nature and landscape protection of the IUCN Category IV Biotope and Species Protection Area ( forest reserve ) of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve .

description

Location of the Letea Forest in the Danube Delta

The Letea Forest is located in the northeast of the Danube Delta between the Chilia and Sulina estuaries. The total area of ​​the forest is 5246 hectares, of which 2825 hectares are under strict nature protection.

The Letea strip of land is the largest maritime sandbank in the Danube Delta. It has a length of 20 kilometers, a maximum width of 15 kilometers, a height of up to 13 meters and extends over an area of ​​17,000 hectares. The "Sandbank Letea" (Romanian: Grindul Letea ) has the shape of an isosceles triangle, with the tip at Periprava and the base near the Sulina arm. The bottom consists of mud and sand deposits carried along by the Danube in the form of dunes , some of which are over 3 meters high and open in a fan shape towards the Black Sea . The forest strips have grown in the hollows of the long rows of dunes, where the groundwater is close to the surface and where a rich humus layer has deposited. These forests form narrow strips of about 150-200 meters.

In 1930 researchers put 500 hectares of the forest, the so-called "Haşmacu Mare", under nature protection. In 1938 the entire Letea forest was declared a nature reserve, in 1980 a biosphere reserve and ten years later a strictly protected zone of the Danube Delta biosphere reserve.

The Letea Forest is the northernmost subtropical forest in Europe. It is made up of strips of forest that developed between the sand dunes and which the locals call "Haşmacuri".

The village of Letea

The village of Letea

Windmill at Letea

In the middle of the sand dunes is the village Letea ( Turkish Meedenkioi , Ukrainian Litka ). Here is the last real windmill in the delta. It is a typical fishing village with thatched houses. The 400 year old village has about 2000 inhabitants.

The villagers obtain food from their own vegetable gardens. They catch cows and horses in the reserve to produce milk and meat products. Thanks to the fishing license , people in the Letea canals are allowed to fish four kilograms of fish per day, but no one controls it.

Feral horses

Historical documents show that the ancestors of today's horse population came to the north of the Danube Delta 300 to 400 years ago through the Tatars and made their home there. The collapse of the Agricultural Production Cooperatives (LPG) after the 1989 revolution caused more animals to be released from the area's population. Animals were also brought into the river delta by their owners to illegally graze there. The interplay of these circumstances led to a remarkable increase in this Hutsul horse population. As a result, the animals multiplied rapidly. Today there are about 10,000 wild horses in the Danube Delta, 2000 of them in the Letea Reserve. Environmentalists fear that the herds could destroy the unique Letea forest in the Danube Delta and pose a serious threat to the ecological balance in the delta. Therefore, they urge the Romanian government to act. The animals are to be caught and their numbers reduced. However, researchers suspect that these horses may have formed a new breed and are calling for the animals to be protected.

Flora and fauna

The Greek tree sling has its northernmost European limit here

There are 500 species of plants and more than 3,000 animal species in the Letea Forest, more than 2,000 of which are insects. Over 70% of the animal species in the entire Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve can be found in the Letea Forest.

The creepers give the forest between the sand dunes a tropical look. The Greek tree sling , a shrub twirling on the oak trunks, with a height of up to 15 meters and a thickness from pencil-thin to arm-thick, reaches its northernmost European limit of distribution here. The evergreen ivy , the blueberry wild grapevine , the hops with their soft cones, the common clematis are all climbing plants that give the forest a tropical look.

The most imposing trees that thrive here are undoubtedly the oaks . Some of these gnarled giants are hundreds of years old. Many old trees become rotten and hollow spaces develop inside them, which the people of the delta call "Brostor". The stock dove and hoopoe nest in these , and the larger tree hollows can also provide permanent shelter for wild cats . Very few young oaks have regrown, as the pheasants that have settled here since 1969 eat the acorns and thus disturb the natural balance.

The area of Sfântu Gheorghe and Letea is home to the huge nests of the sea ​​eagles and some surviving specimens of the strangler falcons that have been pushed back here. The sandy islands of the seashore are home to thousands of swallow nests . Lots of ducks and ratites rest here and then move on. The ornithological observations bring surprises almost every year. Often specimens of new bird species appear, the existence of which is proven by interesting photographs.

The dove-sized woodcock migrates across the delta in large flocks in autumn. That is why the Letea Forest was once a royal hunting ground . The numerous snipe trains occur in a certain periodic order. One species worth mentioning is the jack-sized black woodpecker that lives in the forests of Caraorman and Letea . His voice is reminiscent of the screeching birds of prey.

Elk probably became extinct in what is now Romania at the end of the 18th century. In the mid-1960s another specimen was spotted in the forests of Letea, which most likely came from the territory of the Soviet Union. After the animal had lived as a hermit in the delta for around two years, it was chased into a pit in the summer of 1966, where it perished. However, the killing of the animal had no legal consequences, as the hunting laws of the time did not include moose.

flora

Narrow-leaved ash

Trees

• English oak ( Quercus robur )
• Silver poplar ( Populus alba )
• Black poplar ( Populus nigra )
• Narrow-leaved ash ( Fraxinus angustifolia )
• Hairy ash ( Fraxinus pallisiae )
• Wild pear ( pyrus pyraster )
• Silver linden ( Tilia tomentosa )
• Field elm ( Ulmus foliacea )
• Black Alder ( Alnus glutinosa )

Barberry

Bushes

• Common hawthorn ( Crataegus monogyna )
• Common privet ( Ligustrum vulgare )
• Spindle bushes ( Euonymus europaeus )
• Cornelian cherry ( Cornus mas )
• Red dogwood ( Cornus sanguinea )
• Buckthorn ( Rhamnus frangula )
• Purgier buckthorn ( Rhamnus cathartica )
• Common snowball ( Viburnum opulus )
• Barberry ( Berberis vulgaris )

Climbing plants

• Greek tree snare ( Periploca graeca )
• Common ivy ( Hedera helix )
• Wild grapevine ( Vitis vinifera subsp. Sylvestris )
• Real hops ( Humulus lupulus )
• Common clematis ( Clematis vitalba )

Rare species

• Sand winch ( Convolvulus persicus )
• Sprouting timeless ( Merendera sobolifera )
• Sea ravage ( Ephedra distachya )

fauna

hoopoe

Birds

• White-tailed eagle ( Haliaeetus albicilla )
• Red-footed falcon ( Falco vespertinus )
• Hoopoe ( Upupa epops )
• European roller ( Coracias garrulus )
• Bee-eater ( Merops apiaster )

Reptiles

• Sand lizard ( Eremias arguta )
• Steppe viper ( Vipera ursinii renardi )

Feral horses

More than 2000 wild horses live in the Letea forest and the surrounding meadows.

See also

• Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve
• Caraorman Forest
• List of nature reserves in Romania
• List of nature reserves in Tulcea County

Web links

Commons : Letea  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• deltadreamholiday.ro , The Letea Forest
• revistapadurilor.ro , Starea actuală a Pădurii Letea, rezervație naturală de pădure virgină din Delta Dunării (Romanian)
• videos.arte.tv , ARTE , 360 ° - Geo Reportage: Wild horses in the Danube Delta

Individual evidence

1. ↑ info-delta.ro , Padurea Letea
2. ↑ rotravel.com ( Memento of the original from March 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , The sandbanks 
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} adatbank.transindex.ro (PDF; 10.6 MB), Botond J. Kiss: Das Donaudelta. People, animals, landscapes. Kriterion Verlag Bucureşti 1988.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} deltadreamholiday.ro , The Letea Forest
5. ^ [1] , The Noise of Letea, documentary about Letea, Germany, 29 min, directed by Matthias Leupold , 2016
6. ↑ ^{a b} pferde-der-erde.com , Wild horses of the Danube Delta
7. ↑ vier-pfoten.de ( Memento from March 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), Wild Horses in the Danube Delta
8. ↑ geo.de , Wild horses in the Danube Delta
9. ↑ videos.arte.tv , ARTE , 360 ° - Geo Reportage: Wild horses in the Danube Delta