by Todd Katzner
August 11, 2003
Page 1 : About the Project
My research is on eagles at a Nature Reserve here in Northern Kazakhstan. This area is steppe—dry grassland—with patches of trees in a few places. The patches of trees form most of the protected area of the reserve, and they are also the important areas where eagles nest. The area is called the Naurzum Zapovednik (Zapovednik is the Russian word for Nature Reserve).
There are four species of eagle that live and breed at the reserve: Imperial Eagles (Aquila heliaca), Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos), Steppe Eagles (Aquila nipalensis) and White-tailed Sea Eagles (Halieaeetus albicilla). For the first four years I was here, I studied the ecology of these birds (where they nest, what they eat, how they relate to their prey) with the intention of finding out how these four species that are otherwise so similar, manage to coexist. Now I am interested in studying the demography (population fluctuations) of these species, trying to identify why these populations change. That type of information can be crucial to developing effective conservation management plans for species and regions. More information on my work can be found in an article I wrote for Wildlife Conservation Magazine.
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