Russia

Altai communities and snow leopards threatened by pipeline

August 11, 2011 Russia

Last year I travelled through a remarkable part of Siberia I knew nothing about, in search of Russia’s last snow leopards. In the Altai Republic and the Altai mountains I found a spectacularly beautiful region with a fragile landscape and local communities hanging onto unique traditions and livelihoods thousands of years old. Much of this [...]

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Poacher spotting device to help Russia’s snow leopards

July 12, 2011 Illegal hunting

Sean Burnett and Greg Carney are Canadian economists with a hobby that may save snow leopards in the Altai region of Russia. They’ve invented a poacher-spotting device that employs heat detectors, underground sensors and satellite GPS monitoring to catch illegal hunters. Their Remote Anti-Poaching Intelligence Device uses heat sensor technology attached to a GPS which [...]

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Altai snow leopard adventure continues

July 8, 2011 Russia

It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since I was in Altai mountains, Siberia, southern Russia, searching for snow leopards with a team from Biosphere Expeditions. We were out in this beautiful mountain range for two weeks and saw beautiful birds and groups of ibex. But no snow leopard sign. The team that [...]

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VIP poachers acquitted in Russia

May 24, 2011 Illegal hunting

A court in southern Siberia’s Altai Republic acquitted three high ranking Russian officials of hunting endangered animals when their helicopter crashed killing seven others in January 2009. The case in the remote town of Koch Agash, has been over two years coming to court but Judge Nikolai Lubenitsky said yesterday the prosecution (which asked for [...]

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Media exposes Putin’s snow leopard stunt

March 29, 2011 Russia

It’s gratifying to see that the media has picked up on Russian Prime Minister Putin’s snow leopard stunt. Initially most media outlets ran with the story that Putin’s media machine wanted them to. A snow leopard had been saved from poacher’s and the PM in his role as protector of wildlife, was releasing the poor [...]

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‘Mongol’ the snow leopard released in Russia

March 22, 2011 Russia

Following up from yesterdays post, a Russian media report says Mongol has been released. According to AFP news service Putin had been to see Mongol in his cage. “What a beautiful little cat,” Putin, dressed in a Russian hat and a quilted jacket marked with the Russian eagle and the initials V.V. Putin, whispered as [...]

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Putin endangering snow leopard in media stunt

March 21, 2011 Russia

Snow leopards are endangered in Russia but Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is pulling a media stunt for his own gratification that has endangered the life of one these rare cats and sends all the wrong messages to his fellow countrymen and women. As part of the Sochi Olympics hype he is going to ‘set free’ [...]

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Guest Blogger, Jennifer Castner, Director of The Altai Project

December 9, 2010 Guest Blogger

As a result of my trip to the Altai Mountains in southern Russia this year, I got to know Jennifer Castner, Director of the Altai Project (TAP). Jenn, who lives in California, is fluent in Russian and passionate about this part of Russia. She’s lived and studied in Moscow and worked in Kiev and has [...]

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Antipoaching and felt making help snow leopards in Russia

November 2, 2010 Illegal hunting

Following up from my trip to the Altai Mountains this July I found out Rodney Jackson from the Snow Leopard Conservancy visited the area in August and trained some local residents from Inegen and staff from the Altaisky Nature Reserve to do snow leopard counts in the Argut River valley. This beautiful part of Russia [...]

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Back from the snow leopard search in Russia

August 10, 2010 Russia

Seeing a snow leopard in the wild must be the ultimate experience for big cat lovers. Sadly it wasn’t to be for me, the animal remained as mystical and elusive as ever. But there were so many other exciting animals and experiences during this Biosphere Expeditions research trip in the remote Altai Mountains of southern [...]

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