State Kandalaksha nature reserve

Protected natural territories are studied at school in the discipline "Nature Management". Kandalaksha Reserve is not an exception. It stretches over an area of more than fifty-eight thousand hectares in the territory of the Murmansk region and is considered a reserve for the protection of many waterfowl. Most of it is the water area of the Barents Sea. About birds that live in this state-protected territory, they write not only in school textbooks. Local flora and fauna was considered in detail by the famous writer V. Bianchi.

History of appearance

Like many other reserves and national parks in Russia, Kandalaksha was created to preserve a specific species of animals and birds. In this case it is an ordinary eider, which is famous for its down and has a huge value abroad. In 1932, when the illegal killing of this bird, the ruin of its nests and the collection of eggs for sale, reached an annihilating scale, and this reserve was created. Initially, it was considered a scientific base on which ornithologists investigated the birds that inhabit the region. Gradually, the number of water birds began to increase.

Value

After a while, the Kandalaksha State Nature Reserve was transferred to the department of the relevant committee. This led to an increase in control over the protected zone and the expansion of its borders to today.

At the moment, it is difficult to overestimate the international importance that the Kandalaksha Reserve, located in the water area of the Bay with the same name, has for the preservation of the habitats of waterfowl birds.

Geographical conditions

This natural protected area is located on the coast of the Barents Sea and in a small bay of Bely. The sun in Kandalaksha does not last until eight days in a row, on the adjacent Seven Islands - about forty. Nevertheless, even during the polar night, the wintering day-time animal is provided with a normal existence.

Kandalaksha Reserve is located in the climatic zone formed under the influence of the Murmansk Current. The peculiarity of the natural conditions of this water area is in strong temperature changes, so sharp cooling and warming are observed in all seasons.

Relief

The geological structure of the area, which covered the State Kandalaksha Reserve, interestingly well preserved rocks, which are more than three billion years old. The terrain was formed under the influence of repeated glaciations. Unbelievably beautiful shores, destroyed by waves, as well as the shafts formed from sea shingles and boulders. In total Kandalaksha Nature Reserve owns thirty five geological objects, which have the status of natural monuments.

It consists of almost four and a half hundred islands with different shapes and structures, many types of vegetation - from exposed rocks and covered with dense forest areas. Brooks and lakes on the territory of the reserve are few. They are all quite small. The largest - Big Kumyazhe and Serkinskoe - reach a depth of ten meters.

Flora

The Kandalaksha Reserve has more than six hundred and thirty species in its vegetation cover. On the coast of the White Sea and the islands pine and spruce forest prevail. There are many plants that are characteristic of the sea coast - sedge, cereal and composite.

The swamps of the reserve are subdivided into sedge, shrub or cotton grass - depending on the vegetation prevailing on them. However, water bodies are not rich in large types of grasses. Even the cane growing along the banks never forms dense thickets.

In areas where marine and silver gulls accumulate , vegetation is very diverse, since the soil in these places is well-fertilized. Here you can see a large chamomile camomile, pinks, a charm and sorrel, buttercup, etc.

Animals

Kandalaksha Reserve has about one hundred and sixty species of representatives of local fauna. Of these, twenty-one are mammals, one hundred and thirty-four are birds, two are reptiles and three are amphibians.

Predatory beasts, such as lynx, wolverine and wolf, are more common on the island of Veliky. However, there they do not always live, because for them the given territory is too small.

On the next to the Great site there are two or three bears. The reserve is always inhabited by fox and forest marten, weasel and ermine, as well as the American mink. Their livestock can not be called numerous: it depends on the presence of small rodents.

Hare-hare is the most widespread fur animal, it lives on all islands of the reserve. In the coldest winters, polar bears sometimes appear here. On lakes where there is a rich vegetation, there is an muskrat, crossing from one island to another and choosing the most favorable place for dwelling.

From small mammals there is a red vole, as well as lemmings, which appear on the territory of the protected area only during their mass migrations.

Birds

All year round there live wood grouse, black grouse, grouse and partridge, as well as some species of tits, woodpeckers and cuckoos. In spring, when migrating birds appear , the forests in the reserve come to life. Especially numerous flocks of birds along the coasts, in sparse pine forests and spruce groves. Here you can meet thrush-white-rabbits, black grouses, partridges, such predators as kestrel, derbnik and hawk owl. In the marshes, waders and fifi, snipe and a large snail become habitable.

Specially protected plants

And although all the biological varieties inhabiting the Kandalaksha Reserve are subject to conservation, nevertheless many rare species included in the Red Book of both Russia and the Murmansk region are noted here. They have a specially protected official status.

From the Red Book of the Murmansk region, about forty-two percent of the total number of endangered species are noted here, of which five are fungi, thirty-four are lichens, twenty liverworts, and the same number of leafy moss. Among the vertebrate animals, six species of fish are specially protected, two representatives of reptiles and amphibians, forty-two birds and some mammals.

Plants found on the territory of the Kandalaksha Gulf and nowhere else in the world, grow mainly in protected areas. Among them are island grains, arctic sunflower and white-tongued dandelion.

Specially protected animals

There are twenty-seven species in the reserve. For the Atlantic gray seal, as well as for the crested and large Atlantic cormorants, the Kandalaksha Reserve is the main habitat and breeding place in the whole of Russia. In addition, the common eider nest here (for which, in fact, this protected area was originally created), the golden eagle, the osprey, the peregrine falcon, the white-tailed eagle, the gyrfalcon and the Scandinavian white-throated thrush. Particularly protected marine mammals are several species of whales and dolphins, as well as common seal, polar bear and walrus.

Research

The Kandalaksha Reserve, whose scientific staff has been operating since its inception, was originally positioned as a place where at all costs it was necessary to keep the population of the Eider Eagle. In the short pre-war period, the very first extensive study of seabirds was conducted here, which later became classical.

After the war, the range of works began to expand gradually. In addition to continuing the study of the ecology of some seabirds, a systematic process began here to describe the territory of the reserve, vegetation and its littoral marine communities.

Since then, the results of all standard observations are combined in an annual report, named as follows: "Chronicle of nature in the Kandalaksha Reserve." It is the current biological monitoring report and includes data on the development of all seasonal bioprocesses. The document describes the terms of vegetation and flowering, as well as fruiting in various plants, the beginning and end of spring or autumn migration, the process of reproduction of animals and information on their numbers.