Russia
Russia is the largest country in the world, with more than 6.5 million square miles (over 17 million square km). With a wide array of habitats, which include polar deserts, Tundra, Forest tundra, Mixed and Broad-leafed forests, forest steppe, steppe, semi-desert and subtropic. As a result of this, its wildlife varies greatly.
In the west, it is a true European habitat, and this country contains 30,000-40,000 wolves, and 120,000 brown bears. It is also an important place for polar bears, though these are threatened as with the rest of their range.
It is the only home of the Amur Leopard and Amur Tiger – while both have been near extinction in the last few decades, they are rebounding (though compared to their historic range, their recovery has barely started, and time will tell if the are allowed). Currently there is a little over 100 Amur Leopards, and 265-485 Amur tigers.
The Causican (Asia Minor) Leopard also hangs on though in small numbers.
Snow Leopards are also found. Indeed the range of wildlife of this country is quite incredible
Links to areas to visit will appear below. Â
Â
Help us build up a map of where wildlife has been seen. Add any sightings of mammals that you encounter. As this map starts to be used, we will greatly reduce how long sightings remain free for anyone to see, so that hunters and poachers cannot use this as a resource. The idea is that over time we can build up an idea of exactly where we should look for them. Researchers and similar feel free to add your sightings, We have a members area of the website where full maps will be available, and we are willing to give free memberships to reseachers working on populations that live in the wild.
Â
Tiger doubling from 2010 aim review – Russia
Russia surveys their tigers every 10 years, but out of sync with the international aims. In 2005 between 423 and 502 tigers were thought to be present. in 2015 this had moved to 480-540. As such there is nothing like a doubling represented, but perhaps more success has been had since Unsure
Russia has had a large oil spill deep in the Arctic
One of the main concerns for oil exploration and use in the Arctic, has always been the difficulty of cleaning up any spills in this pristine environment. A large spill has just occurred. A fuel reservoir for a power plant has just collapsed releasing 20000 tons of diesel fuel. The company in question try to …
Continue reading "Russia has had a large oil spill deep in the Arctic"
The insanity of Rishi Sunak and his position – max out our oil and gas reserves
Despite all our promises, Rishi Sunak (the UK prime minister) has vowed to max out the UK fossil fuels reserves. Now there are several stupid issues with this position. He has also suggested that in some way, the war in Ukraine is what has required this move – only 4% of our oil came from …
Continue reading "The insanity of Rishi Sunak and his position – max out our oil and gas reserves"
Reducing gas reliance in the UK power sector from 40% down to 1% in 7 years, and saving money? Really?
A new analysis shows that Britain can cut gas use from the power sector by 2030 (5 years early compared to current targets) and that this would save large amounts of money. How much do you say? it is thought to amount to £93 billion saved, by avoiding fossil gas consumption.
Bringing back the Amur tiger to the western part of its range! (The Caspian tiger)
Across the world many species have huge ranges – look at the leopard, found across Africa and much of Asia. It is not a surprise that these animals have a great deal of genetic variability. However, until recently, far to much of the decisions about subspecies status went on the look of the animal.
News in brief – roundup of politics in the way of action, fossil fuel problems and positive moves
Huge extra emissions because of “cutting the green crap” The level of gas imports in the UK are around 13% higher than they would have been, had the Conservative government not “cut the green crap” one decade ago. It is estimated that this would account for 65 terawatt hours of gas that we will have …
If the UK only emits 1% of the worlds carbon emissions what can we do? well a lot
There is often an argument put forwards in the UK, that as the UK is just a small country we cannot do much when it comes to global warming. After all we only emit about 1% of the worlds emissions, right? Well firstly, given the world has a population of 8 billion (roughly speaking) and …
Continue reading "If the UK only emits 1% of the worlds carbon emissions what can we do? well a lot"
The UK likes to claim it leads the world on global warming mitigation right? Solar farms being refused more than any time in the last 5 years
Solar panels are now one of the cheapest way of generating electricity. This is basically a known fact, despite what is said. Now it is true that there has been some farmland that has been used for solar panels (one of the stupid things about this, is that if you make the solar panel stand …
What should we make of attempts to bring back species?
There have been many big announcements about bringing back recently lost animals. In theory I applaud the effort. Places like the Russian steppe would be much more healthy with thousands of mammoths roaming around. They would likely make the great Russian Taiga forests more productive, and it is thought that they would greatly increase these …
Continue reading "What should we make of attempts to bring back species?"
Back on the 10th I wrote about the Tiger recovery, here is more details about the Kazakhstan reintroduction: by 2026?
The Caspian tiger once lived in 12 countries, from the west in Turkey, to the east in central Asia. Seemingly, across this range, they did not have consistent populations but the tigers lived on the shores of lakes in the region, with 15-20 valleys being their strongholds. On the whole, the Caspian tiger lived in …
All tiger range countries aimed to double their tiger population, Nepal did one better
Back in the last year of the tiger, the tiger range countries came together and aimed to double the number of tigers in the 12 years until the next year of the Tiger – which is this year. As a result, a great deal of surveys have been done to try to work out how …
Proponents of fracking have sold it to us, as a way to cut our dependence on foreign oil, reduce the carbon footprint, and reduce energy bills – but it wont
Fracking is a way to access shale gas. This gas is distributed through a layer of shale rock, and the fracking splinters them in order to allow the gas to escape. A government study was supposed to be published this week but has been delayed.
Amur tiger back from the brink in China, what can this mean in the future
The Amur tiger lives in the far east of Russia, and across the border in china. As little as 15 years ago, the number of Amur tigers living within China had fallen to 20 (or possibly even less.
Several years ago, I wrote about the Prime minister of the UK fighting against this ‘green C**P’ now they want us to look at them as the saviours of the energy crisis?
Back in 2013 David Cameron did a u-turn on government support for Wind and Solar power generation. This has greatly impacted the uptake of both – and the savings are small and will be dwarfed by the likely financial cost of the delay that they forced on us. Gas prices have already risen by 50% …
The government has decided to cull as much as half of the wolf population – why?
Wolf numbers in Sweden started to fall after a law in 1789 allowed commoners to hunt moose and deer, led to a lack of food for the wolf population. It is thought that there were no wolves in the South of Sweden by 1800, and they had vanished from the north by no later than …
Continue reading "The government has decided to cull as much as half of the wolf population – why?"
Saving the Persian leopard
Leopards once roamed through Africa and Asia and even up into parts of Europe. Now their range is diminished and many of the subspecies are either endangered or critically so. The Persian Leopard (also referred to as the Anatolian leopard and the Cascina Leopard)  Iranian Plateau and surrounding areas encompassing Turkey, the Caucasus (Armenia Azerbaijan and other parts …
Only 12 Asiatic cheetah are left in the wild!
At the minimum, the Amur leopard population fell to as low as 30 individuals. The Asiatic cheetah is therefore far closer to extinction. At the current time there are thought to be 9 males and 3 females left in the wild. Given that in 2010 there were around 100, while this is still a highly …
Continue reading "Only 12 Asiatic cheetah are left in the wild!"
What will the Ukraine war have on wildlife?
I do not know how many of my readers follow current affairs closely, though I follow them. Are wars good for wildlife, or are they bad? Unfortunately, it completely depends. I suspect that on the whole, it depends on the wildlife in question. Several times during wars, it was thought that the European bison had …
Continue reading "What will the Ukraine war have on wildlife?"
Return of the bear wolf and lynx to France and western Europe
The recovery of wolves bears and lynx over the last several generations in western Europe has been nothing short of astounding. In the 1960s the population of the iberian wolf did not number more than a few hundred, yet now there are 2500. Similarly, bears got very low but now more than 300 roam – …
Continue reading "Return of the bear wolf and lynx to France and western Europe"
Tiger doubling from 2010 aim review – China
China is a country which has done very poorly when it comes to the tiger. Having a great deal of respect for the tiger – with it woven throughout its early stories, and having played host to 4 of the tiger subspecies ( South china tiger, Amur tiger, indochinese tiger and the bengal tiger). Of …
Continue reading "Tiger doubling from 2010 aim review – China"