Employees of the Sayano-Shushensky Biosphere Reserve have recently summed up the results of their winter counts. Compared to last year, they discovered more tracks left by wolves, red deer and roe deer, and less tracks left by sables, squirrels, hares and musk deer. The winter of 2018-2019 was characterised by low snowfall, estimated at almost half of the reserve’s long-run average, with the lack of fresh snow making winter counts harder to carry out.

“Low snowfall is favourable for ungulates,” said Roman Afanasyev, head of the research division at the Sayano-Shushensky Biosphere Reserve. “They do not have to dig through snow to get food, which means less energy spent.”

In 2019, winter counts covered 16 established routes with a total length of 158 kilometres. Winter tracking starts the annual cycle of the reserve’s counts that allow scientists to estimate the populations of species living in this area. Low snowfall prevented researchers from making a reliable estimate of the species’ density; these figures will be determined in the course of the upcoming seasonal counts.