ИСТИНА

At the end of the one before last century forest-steppe near fortress Omsk had the features of civilization throughout big nature area in the form of rare villages and telegraph-poles (Seebohm, 1878). The places for marsh and hunting wetlands began right off the city; the places for goose hunting were situated in 20-30 versts' distance from them. They caught different аnseriformes: Whooper Swan, Greylag Goose, Mallard, European Wigeon, Aythya sp., Common Goldeneye, Smew, Northern Shoveller, Northern Pintail and Gadwall. Hunting on them started not earlier than on the 15th of July, and continued practically all the year round, stopping just at the period from the middle of April until the end of June. They shot goose and ducks from time to time in spring (Melnikov, 1887). Every day they got nearly 10 000 swan skins near Tukalinsk settlement (140 km north to Omsk) in 1876-79 (Finsh, Brehm, 1882). Along the road West to Omsk a lot of ducks and swans on all lakes and rivers were observed (Finsh, 1877). In the sixties of the 19th century a two hours' hunting near city brought аnseriformes so as one couldn't shoot during the week at the end of the eighties of the same century. Even then it was insisted that Omsk locations would become “desert” in 1880, if strong measures concerning wilderness protection didn't assume (Melnikov, 1887). One hundred years have passed, and the situation concerning аnseriformes became only worse, though many of them began adapting to man's influence.