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Countries
| Area size | Status | Region | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russia | 280,000 ha | Nature Reserve | Caucaskii |
| Russia | 85,000 ha | Nature Reserve | Teberdinskii |
| Georgia | 18,000 ha | Nature Reserve | Borzhomi |
| Georgia | 18,000 ha | Nature Reserve | Lagodekhi |
| Azerbaijan | 25,000 ha | Nature Reserve | Zakataly |
| Total area size | 426,000 ha |
Habitat description
The Caucasus has a large diversity of landscapes and habitats:
- high mountains of the alpine type along the Great Caucasus Range
- slopes of mountains with conifers (spruce, fir, pine) and broad-leaf forests (oak, beach-trees, maple, lime-tree)
- fertile mountain valleys with mild climate of Mediterranean type
- fertile lowlands along sea shores with mild climate of Mediterranean type
- dry steppes of Stavropol'skii kray, Dagestan, Azerbaijan
- mountain plateaus with steppe or semi-desert vegetations
- pasturelands and arable lands with steppe vegetation
mountainous area in the Caucasus
Background information
The Caucasus area includes the Great Caucasian Range and its foothills within the Russian Federation and mountains and valleys of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus hotspot is located between the Black sea in the west and the Caspian sea in the east.
Besides the mountainous area with the highest European peaks (El'brus - 5,642 m and Kazbek - 5,033 m) there are many mountainous plateaus (in Georgia and Armenia), river valleys and strips of lowlands along shores of the Black sea and the Caspian sea.
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Presence of species in landscape
Large herbivores
Large carnivores
Species notes
Caucasian species show decline
The Caucasus represents one of the unique regions showing a complete ecosystem. For example, in the Kavkazsky Nature Reserve 6 species of ungulates, totally ca 8,000 animals co-exist with 80-170 wolves, 15-20 lynx, 200-400 Brown bears. Since 1998, the presence of leopard (Panthera pardus) was approved.
All species of ungulates demonstrate a strong decline in numbers and areas of distribution, except the Wild boar. During last 10-15 years even the species suggested as numerous decreased because of poaching and other unknown reasons. Because of economical reasons as well as destruction of the management system the objective data of scientific reviews are available only in few places (mainly in nature reserves).
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Maps
Interactive map
Hotspot Caucasus to enlarge in Google maps; the green marks are the Nature reserves as mentioned above.
Further map information
If you have any comments on this map, please send your suggestions for improvement.
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Opportunities
Increase the level and effectiveness of protection in existing reserves
Today, conservation efforts for large herbivores in the Caucasus are very vulnerable.Wars, abundance of weapons, political instability, and economical decline lead to mass poaching and killing of animals for meat.
However, in the area there is a number of nature reserves where core populations of ungulates are protected by a staff of rangers. Inspite of low effectiveness these reserves are an important resource for restoration of nature. Also, in almost all republics (the situation in Chechnya, Abkhaziya, and Karabakh is known) survived state structures of management and conservation of nature.
The most useful conservation measure would be to increase the level and effectiveness of protection in existing reserves, because the organisation of new ones is unlikely.
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Threats
The existing density of human population and its quick growth approach the Caucasian biotopes (especially forests and rangelands) to total exhaustion.
War in the Czech Republic, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan have also evoked the alarm of conservationists because the wars caused the end of regulations for natural resources use, poaching and forest fires that existed in the Soviet Union.
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Project Proposals
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Experts and Scientific Referees
Babaev, Elmar
Researcher (PhD). Caucasus, Wild boar, Red deer, Chamois.
Precaspian Institute of Biological Resources Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia.
Precaspian Institute of Biological Resources Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia.
Baskin, Leonid
Arctic
Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Ecology and Evolution
Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Ecology and Evolution
Jungius, Hartmut
Member of ECNC Scientific Council
WWF international
WWF international
Sipko, Taras
Russian mammals
Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences
www.sevin.ru/menues1/index_eng.html
Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences
www.sevin.ru/menues1/index_eng.html
Sylvén, Magnus
Sylvén GmbH
Weinberg, Paul
Mountain ungulates (Caprinae), ecology, behaviour, morpholoy, evolution; Caucasus, former Soviet Central Asia. Russia
North Ossetian State Nature Reserve
www.zapovednik15.ru
North Ossetian State Nature Reserve
www.zapovednik15.ru
Contact
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Library
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Sources
AMIRKHANOV, A.M. (Ed.)
1997, Biodiversity conservation in Russia, The State Committee of Russian Federation for Environment Protection, Moscow, 157 p.
DUBEN, A.V
1985, Chislennost’ i populyatsionnaya structura serny v svyazi s nekotorymi ekologicheskimi factorami (The chamois number and population structure in relationship with some ecological factors) in Kurazhkovskii, Ju. N. (Ed.). Ekologicheskie issledovaniya v Kavkasskom biosfernom zapovednike. , Izdatel’stvo Rostovskogo universiteta, Rostov-na-Donu, 31-63, 256 p.
DUROV, V. V.
1987, Kaban Zapadnogo Kavkaza (Boar of Western Caucasus) , Candidate thesis, Moscow, 20 p.
GINEEV, A.M., M.G. ABDURAKHMANOV, T. X. SPASSKAYA
1988, Sovremennaya chislennost’ i rasprostranenie nekotorykh redkikh i ugrozhaemykh vidov na Severnom Kavkaze (Modern number and distribution of some rare and endangered mammals of northern Caucasus). , In: Resursy zhivotnogo mira Severnogo Kavkaza., Stavropol’ , 42-49; 108 p.
KUDAKHTIN, A. N.
1986, Vozdeistvie volka na kopytnikh v Kavkazskom zapovednike (Impact of Wolf on ungulates in the Caucaskii Nature Reserve) , In: Rol’ krupnykh khishchnikov v zapovednykh biotsenozakh, A. K. Fedosenko (ed.), , Moscow, 21-35
KULIEV, S.M.
1989, Raspredelenie i chislennost’ Dagestanskogo tura v Zakatal’skom khrebte (Distributioin and number of goat of Dagestan in Zakatal’skom ridge, In Thesises of Vsesoyuznogo soveschaniya po problemam kadastra i ucheta zhivotnogo mira, part 2. Ufa., 232-233
MAGOMEDOV, M-R. D., E.G. AKHMEDOV
1994, Zakonomernosti prostranstvennogo raspredeleniya i chislennosti Capra cilindricornis na vostochnom Kavkaze (Regularities of spatial distribution and numbers of Capra cylindricornis at the east Caucasus) , Zoologicheskii Zhurnal, 73, 10: 120-129
SOKOLOV, V. E., A. K. TEMBOTOV
1993, Pozvonochnie Kavkaza. Mlekopitayushchie, Kopytnie (Vertebrate of the Caucasus, Mammals / Ungulates, Nauka., Moscow
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All comments on Caucasus
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