Last Sunday, the last classes in this winter season were held in the school of winter route accounting in the Prioksko-Terrasny Nature Reserve. Students of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia came to classes, and they have been attending training and internships in the reserve for more than a year.
In the course of the practice, students under the guidance of a mentor – an environmental monitoring engineer A.V. Tarasov learned how to customize the attachment of hunting skis to shoes, walk in deep snow on hunting skis, use a GPS navigator, distinguish traces of wild animals, determine the direction of their movement, as well as register what they see on notebooks or smartphones. All these skills are necessary for the proper conduct of winter route surveys.

The program “NextGIS – Simple Accounting” was successfully tested at school, which allows you to collect data directly into a spreadsheet on the webGIS of reserve. The uniqueness of the school for the Moscow region is that in 2 school days, students can see more than 15 types of animals and birds that are rare for the region: European deer, roe deer, otter, grouse, hazel grouse and even lynx on small day routes.

The next school will start its work only in 2020. In total, this year the school has trained more than 30 students from among students, schoolchildren, employees of the reserve and friends of the reserve of all ages. Of them passed the control tests and confirmed their qualifications 12 people. They were awarded qualification certificates.

Thank you very much to all graduates and participants, we hope for your help in carrying out the annual winter route registration of animals in the reserve next year.