Research

Working Across Shared Waters
by Andrey Degtyarev, Department of Biological Resources

In the northeast corner of Russia lies the vast region of Yakutia, covering 3.1 million square kilometers. This beautiful expanse, dominated by taiga and tundra, endures some of the planet’s most extreme weather patterns and light cycles. But it also enjoys the presence of 292 species of birds, plus numerous other fauna and flora, specially adapted to these conditions. Among Yakutia’s migratory birds, the Siberian crane, spectacled eider, and Steller’s eider are of particular conservation concern.

For decades, Russians and Americans have collaboratively researched migratory birds of common concern. The first joint effort in Yakutia began in 1977 between Russia’s Research Institute for Nature Protection and America’s International Crane Foundation (ICF), focusing on the world’s third rarest crane, the Siberian crane, or sterkh. Having a population under 3,000 birds, this species is on the IUCN-World Conservation Union Red List as critically endangered. Sterkhs are particularly vulnerable to loss and degradation of wetlands, which they use almost exclusively from northeastern Siberia to southeastern China. Sterkh eggs were collected in the lower reaches of Yakutia’s Indigirka River by Russian researchers and delivered to ICF’s farm in the U.S. State of Wisconsin. Raising these cranes in captivity has been difficult but successful, and captive-bred chicks continue to be a source of population restoration today.

In the 1990s, ornithologists at the Institute for Biological Problems of Cryolithozone-Yakutsk (Institute) began a different project with ICF, using color banding and satellite tracking to study sterkh migratory routes and wintering sites, especially China’s Poyanghu Lake. The results have served as the basis for creating a network of reserves along the bird’s migratory pathway.

In the mid 1990s, researchers at the Institute implemented a joint study on the migration and biology of spectacled and Steller’s eiders in northern Asia with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (Service) Alaska Fish and Wildlife Research Center (now part of the U.S. Geological Survey). This research was prompted by dramatic declines (96% and 50%, respectively) in these birds’ numbers over a 30-year period in North America, which research in Alaska alone could not explain. Comparative studies using satellite telemetry were undertaken in northeastern Yakutia, where populations are more stable. For the first time ever, researchers established that the eiders migrate along coastal Russia and winter in polynyas in the northern Bering Sea.

The Russian researchers also conducted aerial surveys with Service biologist-pilots from Alaska to document numbers and rangewide distributions of eiders and other waterbirds. Other researchers developed ground-based studies to assess habitat factors as well. Comparative studies have helped shed light on the reasons for the eiders’ population crises in North America, which include lead-shot poisoning and changes in the marine ecosystem. Spectacled and Steller’s eiders remain federally listed as threatened in America, but recovery plans borne of these joint research efforts are helping to slow or halt population declines.

For many of these tundra birds, Yakutia is but a temporary home. Working with fellow researchers in America, we are helping to ensure their populations will always be present across our shared waters.

For more information, contact Andrey Degtyarev, Department of Biological Resources, 14 Sverdlov str., Yakutsk, Russia, 677005, dbr@sakha.ru.