21st November

This is second day trip, new day and fresh hope for learning new things and experiences. As regular the day start on with morning mealtime for an hour. Then we caught the bus and took a trip to Kedrovaya Pad State nature reserve. Then after two hours we got to center office of Barabash village and met with Khokhryakov, Kedrovaya Pad director and staff of the Pad. We had a short introduction with the director and some verbal data and outline information on the protected area. There after half of us went around the Pad, climbing up and sliding down on thick snow ground. Visiting the center land of the leopard (Barabash village) and observing ecological trail and checking of photo trap was fun and cherishing.

Barabash village is one of the oldest reserved found in 1916. It has the area of 1800sqkm and convenient for leopard and tiger habitat. From the area we can see west territory where Amur tiger and leopard stays. According to the survey they said, the reserved has 8-10 tiger and 14 leopards. The reserved is supervised by minister of natural reserve and also supported by WWF Russia.

During our walk in the reserved area we came across rare species of plants and flowers such as Taxus cespidata, Kishmish, Oak tree (has traditional medicine value), Vistis Amurensis (type of grape), poisonous bush, evergreen trees like Pinus Koraiensis and typical trees such as Phethodendron amurens (which has soft bark and medicine value). We are also told about the types of animals found in the area such as wildcat, hare, leopard, wild boar, tiger, eagle, spotted deer, and fezea (bird). It took more than an hour to go around and after that we went for video session on tiger facts inside the office.

The video session is followed by lunch break. Then next visit was located near a highway where animals’ habitat was divided by highway. This causes accidents when the animal needs to cross this road and one such incident took place where female tiger was killed by vehicle travelling at high speed.  Now the reserved people are planning to build a tunnel, so that animals can effortlessly cross to next area.

From the highway we again went far in the jungle where we discovered, deer track, leopard track, wild boar track, rain deer track and tiger track. They said, this is the focused area for tiger habitat and every year scientists carry on studies. Another amazing day is over and we are back to our hotel. Had dinner and worked on internet.