Humans and those crop-munching mouflons must co-exist

The endemic and unique mouflon or “wild sheep” of Cyprus, with the male’s distinctive heart-shaped horns, has become a much-loved and photographed icon for the island.

The breeding programme operating at the Stavros tis Psokas forestry station following the mouflons near extinction has been touted as a much-needed success story for the island’s less-than-stellar environmental record.

But many of the farmers and small-scale growers who still reside in the communities dotted around the Paphos forest, where the mouflons (Latin: Ovis gmelini ophion) mainly roam, consider the programme’s success a serious nuisance.

Pulling up to the Kambos village kafenio and joining in with a party of locals, we expected to be told all about it. As the conversation got underway, however, what was striking was rather the general sentiment that “the agrina [mouflons] are probably the least of our worries.”

Although only one of the eight men gathered still farmed commercially (a cherry orchard) the glum statement opened up a Pandora’s Box: hailstorms, fears of water shortage, and successive governments’ “tone-deaf” endeavours, featured large.

Added to this came the oft-repeated theme heard from one end of the island to the other, despite government schemes and a newly minted commission for the development of mountain communities: the villages are dying and soon only the elderly will be left. “And after that – just the mouflons,” as one man remarked wryly.

The men, most of whom had earned their living at least in part from small-scale farming at some point in their lives, were well-versed on the various ecological factors that have driven the mouflon herds out of the forest and into village areas to forage and destroy crops.

Their ire, however, was not directed towards the animals but to perpetual state policy failures in getting a grip on the situation and managing to protect “both the wildlife and the humans”– an echo of what we have heard in the coastal villages of the Akamas.

The agriculture ministry’s subsidy scheme for fencing of fields (and also for damage compensation) only made sense for those with large-scale cultivations, the men charged. (At one point the state had even attempted to encourage farmers to leave a proportion of their cultivations deliberately available for the mouflon to forage).

“It’s just not financially viable,” the cherry-farmer explained. “We have to pay upfront and wait ages to be recompensated. We can’t afford that! We proposed a scheme to get the funds up front, at least to purchase the materials, and do the work ourselves [to save on labour costs] but got nowhere.”

Other practical problems with the state’s fencing scheme include challenges and costs from the uneven topography of the region. One man mentioned that the ageing farmers lacked the know-how to become involved with increasingly digitised application procedures.

Agriculture unions have long complained about the tedious and overly bureaucratic process of securing subsidies and compensations – a process many small-holders in particular find opaque, discouraging them from applying.

This, while according to the latest available EU stats, Cyprus is among the states with the smallest average area per farm, and the vast majority of the island’s farmers are classed as small-scale.

“It’s all been going on for years,” one retired farmer chipped in. “Shall I tell you why? Because there aren’t any votes to be gained here. They [politicians] migrate here just before elections and then disappear again till the next ones.”

This jaded outlook is as endemic to the island’s rural areas as the mouflon itself, it seems.

Senior game service officer and mouflon expert, Nikos Kasinis, however, maintained that fencing off orchards and fields is, technically at least, the best solution.

“Many have already done it. But we have other challenges,” he added.

Chief among these is that fact that the Paphos forest, an area of around 620km2, consists largely of a monoculture of reforested pines which now encroach on the moufflon’s original habitat.

The trees were planted after the 1974 Turkish invasion, during which huge fires from bombs and other warfare decimated 35 per cent of the Paphos forest and the northwest Troodos range.

“The pine needles create an acidic overlay and also make dense shade which is inhospitable to many understorey plants which the mouflons naturally ate,” he explained.

This, coupled with the animals’ thirst during increasing dry spells, drives the herds down to the villages. There they systematically (and apparently rather daintily) decimate cultivations, showing a particular fondness for grapes, according to one villager’s account “leaving the grape stem clusters intact on the vine”.

The game service, for its part, spearheads a number of mitigation actions, according to Kasinis.

“We work with the forestry department to open up clearings, plant barley and vetch in fire breaks as micro-grasses for their grazing; maintain 150 watering spots across forestlands; clean up springs and gather data,” he said.

Due to these efforts, the island’s mouflons today number around 3,000. A 1878 forestry department estimate put their number at a mere 25. They had been hunted to near-extinction, originally by the Lusignans, who for months at a time, went after them with so-called “small leopards”, likely cheetahs, and hounds.

In 1938 the decision to declare the Paphos forest a full game reserve boosted their numbers. By the late 1980s their population was estimated at “several hundred” and at this time the first complaints from farmers started.

Along with this, incidents of poaching have arisen from time to time, despite steep fines of up to €40,000 and a three-year prison sentence. The latest such incidents involved the killing of two animals in 2021 and an attempt to catch an animal with snares this August.

Episodes with dogs mauling mouflons and terrorising village residents have also occurred, though Kasinis estimated their numbers as much lower than media reports. According to him the packs of four to five dogs regularly pick off mouflons during their breeding season, from October to November, and this is another decades old problem.

Environment commissioner Antonia Theodosiou, whose role was recently expanded to include animal issues, told Cyprus Mail that effective policy entails a focus on human and wild animal cohabitation.

“Climate change means that wild animals and humans are brought together in increasingly closer contact in smaller areas. All must work together to address this,” she said.

The million-dollar question, however, remains: how is it that these issues, which ultimately boil down to evidence-based management of the islands’ natural resources, chronically continue, with no effective solution in sight?

One answer is the cynical view expressed by one of the coffee shop patrons during our visit, that is, that the political will is simply lacking.

Perhaps, however, the answer must be sought in the outdated structure of the forestry service, which still largely operates under a hierarchical “civil defence” model, with “forest management” narrowly defined as firefighting, brush clearing and regulating firewood sales.

A brief glance at the requirements needed to work as a humble “park ranger” (akin to a forestry staff employee) in the USA, a country renowned for its excellence in the management of its national parks, shows that we have much to aspire to.

The island’s forestry college in Prodromos, which was to be upgraded and re-opened last month by a cabinet decision, seems to be doing so at glacial pace.

Asked what the hold up is, Forestry Department head Savvas Ezekiel said there is a still shortage of core staff and works on the building have not been completed.

Speaking on his way to a working trip in California, Ezekiel said that, nonetheless, around 65 foresters were expected to graduate from diploma courses offered at the site by 2027.

“It is a huge undertaking,” he said. Meanwhile volunteer fire fighters are being trained at the site.

While access to opportunities outside their doorsteps remain slim, the older residents of Kambos are hoping that the intruding mouflons will at the very least draw in curious tourists to see them, after a photo of one visiting the local kafenio went viral a few years ago. The best chance to view one is to stay overnight, as the animals are still shy enough to wander close mainly at dawn or dusk.