Lower Amur Region

A method has been developed for creating artificial nesting sites for the Far Eastern turtle during the period of high water content of the Amur River in its breeding areas. The Far Eastern turtle is listed in the Red Books of the Russian Federation and Khabarovsk Krai. Among the factors limiting natural reproduction are high and prolonged floods on the Amur River. Artificially created sites above the zone of coastal flooding by natural waters provide turtles with conditions for successful reproduction.

We studied the colonization of the Amur Rat Snake Elaphe schrenckii and the Steppes Rat Snake E. dione of a sawdust mountain, located among the wastes a timber processing complex, during high floods of the Amur River. Since 2013, both species of snakes live in this territory year-round. For snakes, shelters from the cold are shelters in the form of “floa-ting” cracks (depth 1–1.5 m, temperature in winter up to +18°C) with a snow “roof”. Species E. schrenckii dominates in numbers on group wintering.