This is an article from Raptor-link - a newsletter on Russian Birds of Prey and
Owls. Any information on the newsletter should be directed to Eugene Potapov,
EGI, Dept. of Zoology, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK.
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
 
 
CAN IT BE THAT RUSSIAN ORNITHOLOGISTS HAVE MISSED
THE  PEREGRINE'S CATASTROPHIC DECLINE IN RUSSIA?
        Russia occupies 1/8 of the land surface and about 1/6 of the
Peregrines range.  There is no accurate estimate of Peregrine numbers in
Russia. The Red Data Book of  the USSR (1984) only states that that
Rthere are about some thousand pairs of  PeregrinesS. To be honest, there
are only some isolated counts in Taimyr, Yamal,  Kamchatka and some
other places. Little or nothing is known about population  dynamics and
reproductive success. It needs to be noted that many regions of Russia  are
still difficult to access. One has to keep in mind territorial disputes,
difficulties with  communications and, sometimes, lack of experience.
Some ornithological teams were  formed during the years when the
numbers of Peregrines had already declined to  virtually zero, so when the
surveys started, the Peregrine was simply missed in the  check-lists. Even
if some nests were found, there was no possibility of mapping the  nest
sites, as all detailed maps were treated as Ttop secretU, and in the majority
of cases  they were not available to the researchers. A limited number of
text descriptions of nest  locations sometimes permit nests to be located
with a high degree of precision; some  exceptionally good papers even
have schematic maps, but these records are limited.  There is one
exception amongst the independent countries of the former USSR -
Estonia. There, the disappearance of Peregrines was very well documented
(Kumari  1974). The finding of a ground-nesting pair in the Novgorod
District (Raptor-link  1(3):3) gives hope that Peregrines may have started
to return to Estonia.
        My own obser-vations in the Kolyma River Lowlands show that:
        the reproductive success of Peregrines there is catastrophically low;
        there have been observed cases of the clutch being destroyed by
parents (egg- eating or egg disappearance); also recorded: incubation of
the clutch for more than two  months  and incubation of empty nest
hollows;        there is high mortality among chicks;
        the DDT levels in eggs are extremely high and the eggshells are
significantly  thinner than those from the same region collected before the
1920s.
        There is a suspicion that all the observed phenomena are not
limited to the  territory of North-eastern Siberia, as there are apparently
similar observations from  other regions.
        The Peregrine Fund, Inc. has kindly agreed to sponsor the
distribution of  questionnaires on past and present distribution of
Peregrines in the territory of the  former USSR. These will be sent to all
Raptor-link subscribers living in this territory.  The success of the previous
questionnaires issued on the initiative of Hawk Mountain's  Hawk Aloft
Wordwide provides the hope that we will gather more information on
density of Peregrines, and perhaps will be able to reconstruct the dynamics
of density  in past decades. Even simple records of nest sites, or brief
observations from the  1930s-60s will do. Please, answer the
questionnaire. It may happen that we have  already lost a subspecies or
even several subspecies. Who can say something about the  Russian
Peregrine Falco peregrines brevirostris? Maybe urgent measures of re-
introduction and captive breeding are needed.
        And a last word. We all complain about lack of funds: we use
helicopters less  than we used to; there are no longer  Rfield allowancesS;
you cannot get outboards and  "nothing is as it should be". Let me mention
one fact (now, history): a classic study on  the Collvill River, Alaska by
Profs. T.  Cade and C. White was carried out in a dinghy.  Twenty years
ago, Skip  Ambrose did the same on the Yukon. All you need for a
Peregrine survey is a dinghy, good health and common sense. Ideally, we
should  establish index territories suitable for regular and repeatable
surveys.
Eugene Potapov, Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology,
South Parks Road,  Oxford OX1 3PS.