Tadeusz Chrostowski, Polish father of Ornithology in Paraná is buried in roadside grave by the Iguaçu NP

The biography of Polish scientist Tadeusz Chrotowski is admirable. He was born in 1878 in the small town of Kamionka, in the province of Lublin, Lubartów county, Poland, at the time under Russian Czarist rule. He died in 1923 in a place that no longer exists called Pinheirinhos at the time probably with a population of 1. At the time Pinheirinhos belonged to Foz do Iguaçu which included most of what is known today as West Paraná, Brazil.    

This book gave Chrotowski the title of father of the Ornitology of Paraná

The only permanent inhabitant of Pinheirinhos was the caretaker of the telegraph post of the Foz do Iguaçu – Curitiba telegraph line. Pinheirinhos never lived enough to become a town, district or anything as far as status goes. Saying that Tadeusz Chrotowiski died in Pinheirinhos is the same as saying that he died at the telegraph post in the company of the caretaker, the Polish entomologist Tadeusz Franciszek Antoni Jaczewski and possibly some locals that accompanied his team along  the road as guides and pathfinders. He was buried at the same spot. By the side of the Guarapuava’s Old Road, at the time the Telegraph Road.  Today, his grave, what whatever remains of his grave, happens to be  on the limits of the Iguassu National Park, today a World Natural Heritage Site, a distinction also given to the the Iguazú National Park on the Argentinean side of this three-country borderland. For those interested in locating the place where Pinheirinhos was, it can be added that the local belongs today to the area of the municipality of Matelândia with a population close to  18,000 Matelandians.  .     

Tadeusz Chrotowiski, like a very select group of European immigrants and would-be settlers, decided soon after arrival to the forests of Paraná, or the New World, that this business of cutting down trees and planting crops was not for them. Chrotowski, one day left everything behind and embarked on a journey of exploration and understanding of  Nature as found in the State of Paraná with the intention of doing science.

This wins him the password to enter the category of settlers who turned to science like Fritz Müller in Santa Catarina, and Moisés Bertoni in Paraguay. Bertoni was born in the Italian-speaking Swiss canton of Ticino emigrated to Argentina, crossing over into araguay where he helped foster Paraguayan science. He died in Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil), a short but not easy rowing trip up the Paraná River to this Brazilian then port city, from his extensive nature laboratory. He is buried in the small family cemetery in his property now a protected area in the Paraguayan National Parks System. Chrotowski and Jaczewski paid a visit to Bertoni in his house, laboratory and experimental farm in Port Bertoni according to Jaczewski testimony.

"We have made... a small excursion to Puerto Bertoni, residence of the well known South-American naturalist Dr.M.S.Bertoni; this place is situated not far from Foz do Iguassú down the river Paraná on its right, i.e. Paraguayan bank. Having been most cordially received by Dr.Bertoni, and have visited his nice botanic garden, as wellas his local museum …”

       

Thanks to Chrotowski's three trips, the birds of Paraná were first scientifically registered, described and catalogued. His first published work on the birds of Paraná was published in Poland and in Polish, a detail worth highlighting. At the time Poland was under Russian rule and the Russian government seemingly was not interested in financing or supporting works  in a language  other than Russian. Tadeusz's answer came in the form of the publication of his book in good and clear Polish: Kolekcya ornitológicasicna ptaków paranskich or "Ornithological Collection of Birds of Paraná" or Ornithological Collection of Paraná (state) Birds (Thanks Google Translator).

The location of Tadeusz Chrostowski’s grave was common knowledge in the area the Iguassu National Park. Was! It no longer is. In 2018, the Revista Mosaico magazine published in nearby Medianeira promoted a small expedition to find Tadeusz's tomb. The tomb or what was left of it was found by the team with the help of personnel from the Iguassu National Park Céu Azul Visitors Center. Finding the tomb was accompanied by a general feeling of disappointment at the preset day state of abandonment. The Mosaico Magazine expedition became a story replicated in several local media like the H2Foz website in Foz do Iguaçu. With the headline "The Immigrant who Studied birds", the newspaper Gazeta Informativa of São Mateus do Sul (PR), the place where Chrotowiski’s former community is located,  made its contribution to the struggle not to let history evaporate in the dimension of oblivion. Tadeusz's death occurred on his third trip to Paraná, as he traveled back to Poland twice.

His death was due to malaria, common at the time, that he contracted on the Porto Mendes - Foz do Iguaçu stretch on the route of the old navigations at the time of the Mate Herb exploration. There is no record of what Chrotowski did in Foz do Iguaçu, which was already a stablished municipality, whether he went to the Falls or not, whether he birdwatched there, it is not registered in the literature available locally. But he did leave precious data on his daily journey record:

"We took thus from Fóz do Iguassú a large horse-cart to a place called Pinheirinhos; situated 72 km. eastwards from the banks of the Paraná. Along the road, which crosses mostly thick forests, runs a telegraph line; human habitations are very scattered here, the distances between them often 30-40 km. We arrived at Pinheirinhos...and stopped at the house of Mr.Pedro de Paula Marins (called also Pedro Castellano), a guard of a section of the telegraph line and almost the only inhabitant of this place. The surroundings of Pinheirinhos are covered with few exception of some small cultivated areas by thick virgin forests. the place has received its name from the few 'pinheiros' growing here; this is, however, only a small isolated 'pinheiros' - wood, not connected directly with the isolated 'pinheiros' forests, which begin some 60 km, further east. The elevation above sea-level is here approximately 390 m”.

A little explanation is necessary for the international reader. Pinheirinhos means little pine trees. The pinheiro tree in question here is the Araucaria angustifólia also know as the Paraná pine.

Ornithological Honors

Chrotowski is officialy known as the Father or the Patron of Ornithology in Paraná.

Chrotowski's designation as Patron of Ornithology in Paraná is very valid and therefore a source of inspiration for both ornithologists and birdwatchers in the State whether they are professions connected to ornithological science or amateur birders. It is a family that is growing.

Highlights in Paraná in Brazilian ornithology today include several names and we will return to this subject shortly. At the moment, we are directing the spotlight to the magazine Actualidades Ornitológicas (AO) with headquarters in Ivaiporã, Paraná.

In Brazil, the honor of being the father of ornithology has been bestowed on the zoologist Olivério Mário de Oliveira Pinto who lived between 1896 and 1981 born in Jaú (SP). In his curriculum is the rediscovery of Lear's macaw (Anodorhynchus leari) during a trip through northeastern Brazil, near Juazeiro (BA) in 1950. Two years later, in 1952, still traveling through the Northeast, he rediscovered the Alagoas curassow (Mitu mitu) which eventually became extinct in the Atlantic Forest of Alagoas.

Today it starts to be reintroduced in the Alagoas forest and as we are dealing with someone who put Paraná on the list of ornithological leaders, I highlight here one more fact: the Alagoas curassow is one of the birds of the Atlantic Forest in the list of birds studied, hosted, cared for and reproduced in the Foz do Iguaçu Bird Park in an effort to reintroduce the bird in the suffered but not totally overcome Atlantic Forest of Alagoas. Tadeusz Chrotowski, the Polish scientist would be happy if he knew that his in ornithology in Paraná is beingcarried out in Parque das Aves!

How are things today

The situation of Tadeusz Chrotowski's grave by the side of a historic road that has along the time answered by names like Strategic Road, Telegraph Road, Cascavel - Foz do Iguaçu Road and after the opening of the federal Highway BR-277, as the Estrada Velha de Guarapuava (the Old Guarapuava Road) is rather sad.

The restoration of the grave is a matter of respect for someone that chose to be here, loved the land of Paraná, put his name on the list of researchers and died in a place that no longer exists and is buried in a tomb that no longer exists.

This post ends here expressing the dream to see the Pole community in Paraná, Poles from Lubartów, from his hometown Kamionka, together with Brazilian and “paranaense” actors along with institutions like the Iguaçu National Park and surrounding municipalities decide to do justice and join efforts not let the memory of this great researcher fade away. The same thing is said about the other Tadeusz, Tadeusz Jaczewski, zoologist and travel partner, whose ways parted at Pinheirinhos after the friend was left behind under the shadow of the Atlantic Forest and cared for by the birds of Paraná, he loved so much.

Notes
Quotes on Chrotowski by Jaczewski from: DICIONÁRIO GEOGRÁFICO DAS
EXPEDIÇÕES ZOOLÓGICAS POLONESAS AO PARANÁ, by Fernando Costa Straube and Alberto Urben-Filho