Calendar winter is counting its last weeks. A lot of snow fell in the suburbs for this winter. It is the traditional time for winter route registration of the number of animals in the Prioksko-Terrasny reserve.

On the 9th and 10th of February, 2019, in the Prioksko-Terrasny Reserve, the next winter route registration took place. Such surveys are carried out annually in each specially protected territory of Russia. The data obtained give an idea of the number and distribution of animals and rare birds in the reserve.
Nothing should hide from the attentive worker, all traces should be noticed and fixed, you need to accurately determine the direction of movement of each animal. On the first day, “erasure” was carried out – existing tracks were erased, so that on the next reference day it is easy to distinguish new tracks from old ones. On the second day, a complete record of all traces reappeared in the last 24 hours was carried out.

To carry out this difficult work came out: reserve inspectors, employees of the scientific department and volunteers, of course, from those who passed our “School” of winter route accounting and confirmed their knowledge. Next Sunday, the last lesson of the School will be held this season to prepare new volunteers for the next year from among the students of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia.
A total of 11 routes were passed with a total length of more than 100 kilometers.

After this work, it can be said with confidence that the main inhabitants of the winter forest, registered by this method, still live here. Traces of elk, spotted deer and European deer, roe deer, wild boar, marten and polecat, weasel, mink and ermine, fox, lynx, and hare were found in the reserve. Birds marked: hazel grouse, wood grouse, goshawk. The peculiarity of the year was a sharp reduction in the number of wild boars in the reserve from 40 to 3-5 individuals. Scientists attribute this to the mass extermination of wild boars in Moscow and neighboring areas in connection with the epidemic of African swine fever.

A detailed analysis of the data obtained will make it possible to determine the number of main species of animals in the reserve. The results will be carefully processed and verified, and then they will be entered in the Annals of Nature Reserve for 2019.
We express our great gratitude to young men from the Club of Young Biologists of the Moscow Zoo, as well as to Aleksey Bryukhanov, Vasily Demidov, Vladimir Kashinin, Ekaterina Kuprikova, Vladimir Sushko.
Your help in this difficult job is very important for the reserve!