Exploring Russia’s Rare Wildlife

Nearly twice the size of the United States, Russia is the biggest country on earth. From the subtropics to the Arctic, the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, giant lakes, active volcanoes and endless forests frame the natural treasures of Russia. Dramatic carnivores, head-butting ice age survivors and endangered birds are just a starting point as we reveal another side to the country. The natural beauty hidden in the vast expanses of Russia. A land of superlatives, Russia covers an incredible 17 million square kilometers. It's the biggest of all countries, covering one-tenth of the earth's surface. It spans 11 time zones, straddles two continents and its coasts reach three different oceans. Russia is perhaps best known for its politics, weapons, space race and fossil fuels. For its huge scale, cold climate and fondness for vodka. But there is another lesser-known side to this vast country. Its natural history. It might have the fifth largest population on the planet but more than 70 percent of Russian people inhabit urban areas, leaving vast tracts of unspoiled wilderness to explore. Moving from west to east, hidden Russia reveals its spectacular diversity. Traveling from Scandinavia, the transition to Russia is imperceptible. It's mixed forests and open plains continuing through Karelia. Faint traces in the rock reveal the long presence humans have had here, but also an ancient connection to nature. Despite the labor involved in a time before tools, swans have been etched into the rock. This frozen north of Russia provides a breeding ground for elegant hooper swans. Winters here are tough. To escape the worst of it, the regal birds took a vacation to central Europe, some traveling thousands of kilometers. It's still cold here, but mild enough for an excited reunion. The birds pair for life and quickly affirm their bonds to each other and make it clear that Casanovas are not welcome. Their young from last year are still with them, guided through their first migration by their parents. But now it's time for them to go it alone, and the parents angrily carve up the lake shores into potential nesting sites. The Karelia region has plenty of water for swans. There are thousands of lakes, including the two biggest in Europe, Lake Ladoga and this one, Lake Onyaga, spanning nearly 250 kilometers, so large that it contains over 1,600 islands. The small ones provide safe nesting spots for the swans and their neighbors. Black-throated divers spend winter out at sea, returning to clean freshwater lakes to breed. Divers live up to their name. Their legs are so far back on their bodies that they can barely walk on land, and so always nest right on the water's edge, something that puts them at risk from predators. A bear, enemy number one to most of the animals of the forest, the divers take to the water. Their display intended to draw the bear away from their nest, though the bear doesn't seem particularly interested in either. Many of the region's lakes were once connected. During the ice age, there was a continuous body of water from here to the Baltic. Though water levels have receded enough to separate the lakes, the region remains boggy with vast wetlands, which to the south gradually give way to the Volga Plateau. Vast rolling hills that drain into the Volga, the longest river in Europe. The forested hills are teeming with wildlife, like red deer, who often browse on patches of open grass, but stay close enough to the edge of the forest to dash for cover. The tree line can be a dangerous place to hang out. One of the most secretive and least seen of predators slinks in the shadows, the Eurasian lynx, but this female isn't hunting, she's calling. She has a secret tucked away in the vegetation. Though the female's territory sits within the much larger home range of the male, she's on her own when it comes to raising the family. Her cubs are already a few months old, but it will be half a year before she can go off duty, leaving them to fend for themselves. They'll become top hunters in the forest, quite capable of bringing down deer several times their own size, but for now the little ones are content trying out their moves on each other. Moving south, the climate becomes hotter and drier, forest giving way to open arid grass plains. In a few tiny pockets of Russia live relics of the ice age, saiga antelope. Once ranging across most of Eurasia, only a few populations cling on, but the animals stay faithful to their habitats, constantly on the move, making huge migrations in search of fresh grazing. Bulbous noses are built in face masks. Traveling in large herds, the moving antelope kick up dust. The noses filter this airborne dirt before it can choke their lungs. In cold winters, they also warm air before it's inhaled, helping to prevent heat loss. This is Caucasus, Russia's far south, punctuated by the spectacular Caucasus mountains. The highest peak, Mount Elbrus, is a dormant volcano towering 5,600 meters, the highest peak in Europe and the 10th highest in the world. But for their vast size, the Caucasus mountains are dwarfed by an even greater range. The Ural mountains cut Russia in half. Its land to the west sits on the continent of Europe, but the Urals represent a continental divide, with most of Russia on the east in Asia. Its southern foothills are little more than desert, but they quickly climb. These are amongst the oldest mountains on earth, with a 300 million year old birthday coming up. With a span of two and a half thousand kilometers, it goes through some dramatic changes. Arid slopes give way to forest, lots of forest. With such convoluted terrain, the region scoured by water, in all forms from tiny trickle to raging torrent. The lush environment is paradise to wildlife. An unusual fisherman is drawn to a stream. Usually a nighttime muncher of mice and voles, the Ural owl turns his talons to a bit of frog catching. Fishing is rare for this species, but it has hungry chicks to feed, and so takes whatever it can find. The chicks don't seem particularly fussy. Ural owls are very faithful monogamists, working together to keep up with their demanding youngsters. It's a three to four month long slog. There are plenty of unusual riverine predators hidden in the wet wilderness of the Urals. Hunted for its velvet like fur, this creature is as rare as it is odd, and its lifestyle choices make it an even rarer sight than the owl. This is a Russian Desmond, also known as the water mole, because that is exactly what it is. Though they maintain a den under the waterline, all entrances are submarine. Unlike most moles, Desmonds are social, with a few mucking in together, sharing the den. But all of their foraging is done in streams. Holding their breath for five minutes, they feverishly hunt for any small animals they can find. Though mole in most respects, they do have a few adaptations. Webbed feet, a long flattened tail, and sensors on the tips of its mobile snouts to sniff out aquatic prey. There's another mammal stalking the shallows that the Desmonds might choose to avoid, the secretive European mink. Hunted mercilessly, outcompeted by introduced species, and displaced by development, this species is critically endangered. The fast flowing streams are a preferred habitat. They're less likely to freeze up in winter and make a good site for this female's den. Her young were born blind and helpless, but tripled their weight in just 10 days. Now they're nearly a month old, and their mother is doing her best to shift them to a meat diet. She works non-stop to keep the food coming. In another month, she'll be teaching them to hunt for themselves. These three unique predators are hidden from the outside world, tiny and in a vast forest, making them easy to miss, though well worth looking for. But they vanish against the scale of the huge Ural range, which just goes further and further north from its desert roots. All the way into the Arctic. Below the mountains of the north, Russia has a wide belt of tundra up to 400 kilometers across. Winters are so tough here, and the summer so short, that large plants struggle to grow. Instead, rolling hills where forest is replaced with mosses, lichens, grass, and miniaturized shrubs. Ground contains permafrost here that hasn't melted in tens of thousands of years. 25% of the earth's surface is permafrost, and more than half of it's here. Rising temperatures are causing it to melt. And as it does, it's exposing clues to its much colder past. An ice age monster, the eroding tusk of a 40,000 year old mammoth, it's not the only relic left behind by the ice age. Musk oxen. Looking like a shaggy buffalo, the impressive beasts are more closely related to sheep. The hardy creatures weathered a tough winter, using broad hooves to dig for food in the snow, and their thick double layered coats to guard against the weather. Summers are short, but wonderful. The musk ox are free to enjoy a rich diet of flowers and fungi. They can bulk up, ready to face the cold again. But they have another endurance test first, the rut. Male musk ox are turbo charged crash helmets on legs. Like gunslingers at dawn, each back up 20 paces, and then charge. At up to 50 kilometers per hour, they have the impact of a car crash. Their skulls are reinforced. The bones and horn pad above the brain are five times thicker than a cycle helmet. It's hardcore, but only winners get to mate. Ensuring that only the toughest genes are passed on to the next generation. In the Arctic, they breed them tough. Further north, there's another landscape that's bleaker world's Arctic coastline belongs to Russia. This is the realm of the polar bear. The largest land carnivore. The great snow bear can stand more than three meters tall and weigh half as much as a small car. Often considered marine mammals, polar bears are most at home roaming sea ice, hunting seals and walrus. But in summer, the ice melts and the bears are stranded on the beach. They get hungry and lose weight during summer, though occasionally get lucky. Beluga whales often swim close to the coast, not just to forage, but to rub their skin on the rocks in shallow bays to help rid themselves of parasites. And there are other visitors. Gray whales, from a very rare population in the western Pacific, migrate into Arctic waters. Occasionally, dead animals wash up on the beaches. A treat for a hungry polar bear. This is a landscape where plants struggle to survive. Only the toughest eke out a living. It's Russia's nature at its harshest. But for most of this vast landmass, conditions are more favorable. 70% is cloaked by forest, a fifth of all found on our planet. This is the taiga, the Russian name for the boreal forest. It's still temperate and exposed to fierce winters, but that doesn't stop it supporting some of the most spectacular wildlife. The king of the taiga is the tiger. The Siberian tiger, the biggest cat on earth, is also one of the rarest. This is its last stronghold. The bleakness of winters and the remoteness of nearly 6,000 kilometers of forest have stopped much human development, keeping the tigers out of reach of hunters that have driven their species numbers down to a few thousand. The stripes in its luxurious fur that made it so sought after for fashion helps it blend into the barcode of bare trees, helping it hunt the other tough giants of the forest, wild boar and moose. The taiga forest is one of the world's biggest biomes and it stretches across most of Russia. The temperate forest experiences cold winters and can have permafrost beneath its roots, but still life proliferates, though it's not always easy to spot. Secretive and primitive deer, a musk deer, armed not with antlers but tusks, skulks about in the shadows, though probably doesn't need to worry about Asian badger, a deer is a bit beyond his reach. Badgers eat almost anything, including rodents, if they can catch them. But preparing for winter, chipmunks are fast enough to evade most predators. At breakneck speed they dash about trying to beat each other to the best seeds and nuts, cramming their cheek pouches full to carry the treasure back to their nests. A third species of bear enjoys the Russian forest, sometimes called a moon bear because of a white crescent shape on its chest, the Asiatic black bear is a true forest dweller. This female is a single mum and will spend several years teaching her young to make a living in the forest. Some predators choose to stay hidden until the light fades. The biggest owl and with less than 1 000 individuals, one of the rarest. The blackeston's owl prefers nocturnal forays to hunt its unusual prey. It's a fishing owl, it has competition for aquatic life from a raccoon dog, but with a trout secured it ferries its catch to its rapidly growing chick. Spooking another resident normally hidden in the canopy, flying squirrels, not true flyers but gliders, thanks to a membrane of skin running from wrists to ankles. They rarely need to descend to the ground which is lucky, at night the forest floor can be a dangerous place. There are only around 100 armour leopards left on earth, almost all of them in the Decimated by hunting, legal protection might now allow this cat to creep back through the forests of Russia. The forests of southeastern Russia have another feature, at 600 kilometers long it's not exactly hidden. This is lake Baikal, the biggest body of freshwater on earth. It contains 20 percent of the world's fresh water. Russians don't do lakes by half, this one is the oldest, clearest and deepest, a natural wonder and it's getting bigger. It's a rift valley formed as tectonic plates pull apart from each other. It gains a few centimeters every year. The phenomenal lake contains several thousand species of animal, most of which are found nowhere else on earth. It even has its own species of seal. Seals are usually saltwater marine mammals that live along the coasts. Quite how they got here is a mystery, they might have brought themselves in by swimming up rivers or the lake might in its past have been connected to the sea. Either way the seals have been living here for at least two million years. The lake is fed by more than 300 rivers flowing from several surrounding mountain ranges. From the northern shore the Baikal mountain range stretches across the rest of Russia to the east, forming a border with neighboring countries. Until finally it reaches the eastern coast and the pacific ocean. Here Russia has one more surprise, a vast peninsula Kamchatka. It's huge, about the size of Switzerland, Germany and Austria. Over 1000 kilometers long it looks like a land left behind in the mists of time. 160 volcanoes, 30 of which remain active, punctuate the skyline, while boiling mud holes and vents of steam reveal the fury of the fiery underworld. It's the highest concentration of volcanic activity anywhere. Tundra, forests and 100 000 lakes and streams fuel the perfect image of untamed wilderness. It's a wet wonderland. Moisture is carried in from the surrounding Okhotsk and Bering seas and the mighty pacific ocean. Very productive waters that draw in giants, killer whales. The supersized dolphins are here because they are following prey that has brought them close inland. They are not the only predators aware of the arrivals. Hungry bears are gathered waiting along the coast. The surface of the sea is calm, apart from the first signs of salmon. Kamchatka is famous for its salmon. A fifth of all pacific salmon of all six species come here to breed. It was in these rivers that the fish hatched from their eggs. They went through a spectacular transformation from a young freshwater fish to one that lives in the open ocean. They have been at sea for several years but now mature they are back and ready to breed. What starts out as a trickle is soon a tsunami of fish and the bears are ready. Russia could be called the land of the bears with brown, black and polar bears it has more than its share and the brown bears of Kamchatka are the biggest in the world. The salmon come at the perfect time from late summer they arrive offering a feast to the bears who are trying to build up their fat reserves ready for their winter sleep. Bears are usually solitary but with food in abundance they're more claim the best fishing spots and everyone else gives them a wide berth. Especially mothers with young, big male bears are their only real threat. Fortunately there are plenty of salmon and soon even the smaller streams are packed and a family finds a quieter place to work on their fishing skills. The salmon that escape the claws release their eggs which will mature in the streams until they are ready to venture downstream to the ocean. But for their parents this was a one-way trip exhausted by the upstream battle and competing with each other and above all the impact of fresh water on marine bodies. Their lives are over their carcasses will add nutrients to the waterways and ensure a rich nursery for their young. From this pacific coastline Moscow is a 10-hour flight away the end of a nation that stretches 9 000 kilometers east to west. A giant country that dominates two continents but because Russia lies so far north its landscapes are cold and dry harsh places that have limited development. Most of Russia remains wild and beautiful and if you look for its hidden treasure the spectacular diversity of Russia's wildlife is revealed.