Protected areas are being studied at schoolwithin the discipline of "Natural History". 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.
Some time later KandalakshaThe state natural 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.
This natural protected area is located on thethe coast of the Barents Sea and in the 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.
The Kandalaksha Nature Reserve is located inThe 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.
It includes almost four and a halfhundreds of islands with different shapes and structures, many types of vegetation - from exposed rocks and covered with dense forest areas. Brooks and lakes in the reserve are few. They are all quite small. The largest - Big Kumyazhe and Serkinskoe - reach a depth of ten meters.
The Kandalaksha Reserve in its plantmore than six hundred and thirty species. On the coast of the White Sea and the islands pine and spruce forest prevail. There are a lot of plants characteristic of the sea coast - sedge, cereals and Compositae.
The swamps of the reserve are divided into sedge,shrubby or cotton grass - depending on the vegetation on which they predominate. 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 silverygulls, vegetation is very diverse, as the soil in these places is well-fertilized. Here you can see the chamomile large-flowered, the jask, the charm and sorrel, buttercup, etc.
The Kandalaksha Reserve has about a hundredsixty species of representatives of local fauna. Of these, twenty-one breeds of mammals, one hundred and thirty-four - birds, two species of reptiles and three - amphibians.
Predatory beasts, such as the lynx, the wolverine and the 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 threebear. The reserve is always inhabited by fox and forest marten, weasel and ermine, and also the American mink. Their livestock can not be called numerous: it depends on the presence of small rodents.
Hare-hare is the most widespread furryanimal, it lives on all the 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.
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, merlin, and hawk owl. In the marshes, waders and fifi, snipe and a large snail become habitable.
And although all biological varieties,people inhabiting the Kandalaksha nature reserve are subject to conservation, however 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 hereabout forty-two percent of the total number of endangered species is noted, of which five are fungi, thirty-four are lichens, twenty are liverworts, and the same number of leaf-stalk 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 territoryKandalaksha Gulf and nowhere else in the world, grow mainly in protected areas. Among them are island grains, arctic sunflower and white-tongued dandelion.
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.
Kandalaksha nature reserve, research workerswhich has been operating since its inception, was initially 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 subsequently became a classic.
After the war, the range of works was graduallyexpand. 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.
