Аннотация:In Russia, 2017 was dedicated as a Year of Ecology—and it was a very good year overall for the Park! With growing support from the Amur Region Government and Legislative Assembly, firefighter teams conducted fire prevention and suppression activities in spring and fall, resulting in record breeding success of White-naped Cranes—chicks fledged in at least 19 families! For the first time, two one-year old Red-crowned Cranes raised in our pens were released into our wetland to support a declining mainland population. Never before have we enjoyed support from so many (~400!), mostly local, volunteers who helped with fire prevention and suppression, took care of captive birds, kept headquarters and campsite in good order, planted trees, and worked with the European team of bird banders. The Eurasian Coot is breeding at the Park once again, and we observed growing numbers of Common Pochards staging at the Park and other parts of Zeya-Bureya Plain.
We launched insect studies run by our visiting researchers, continued banding of small birds, developed 160 acres of lure fields for birds (corn, small grain, soybean, sunflower) to provide additional food source for migrating birds in fall and especially in spring, built a new indoor pen for cranes, designed and installed three signs about endangered birds, conducted environmental education summer camp and classes in a camp for social orphans, hosted three public events, completed and posted on YouTube the second part of the video film about the Park wildlife, and regularly updated our website and Facebook.
As always, there were challenges including difficulty finding worthy candidates for key positions, shortage of funds. Also, the soybean producer using most of our arable land under an Agreement on Cooperation illegally developed 304 acres of our grassland, including critically important habitats of the rapidly declining Yellow-breasted Bunting. In 2018 we will begin restoring our meadows.