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this great river, which used to be one of the least transformed by man rivers of our planet is now under the threat of an environmental disaster.

Due to the growth of various industries and to dumping of huge amounts of industrial wastes in the waters of this boundary river, the Amur becomes very much polluted and needs to be protected.

Two expeditions to the Amur middle reaches organized by the Institute of Aquatic and Ecological Problems under the Far Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Amur-side Geographic Society in 1998 provided the researchers with an opportunity to make an assessment of the present-day state of the natural environment of the river and to identify problems of the biological and aquatic resources and vegetation conservation in a situation of intensive economic activities. The expeditions participants unanimously concluded that the Amur eco-system has approached a dangerous borderline and will deteriorate to such an extent that it will have to be reproduced and not protected. And that will be more costly and more complicated to do.

In June and July of 1998, when the Sungary river was in severe flood, the Aquatic and Ecological Problems Institute specialists reported various harmful agents getting into the Amur in gigantic quantities. Dirty and poisonous ribbons of foam, oil patches, all kinds of household wastes floated on the surface of the muddy yellow water. The chemical compounds, while being accumulated in the various aquatic organisms, turn into dangerous sources of water pollution and fish poisoning in the Amur.

On the Chinese bank of the river a sand is extracted on the foreland, the trees are cut down, the lands are ploughed up to the very riverside and fertilizers are applied in big amounts in the fields. The dikes (дамбы) that protect the river banks from washing out and the fields – from flooding, negatively and destructively affect the river. They sometimes stretch for dozens of kilometers along the Chinese bank. Interfering with the natural watercourse dikes contribute to more active washing out of the banks in the other sections and increase the watercourse instability. As a result, navigable paths shift from one arm of the river to the other, the rifts get shallow and new islands are formed in the river. All this not only makes the navigation difficult, but also impedes the development of the borderline relationship between the two countries. The problem of Russian-Chinese cooperation in ensuring ecological safety of one of the richest and the most beautiful rivers in the world is currently extremely important. In the new millennium the people’s welfare on both river banks is subject to what priority its solution will be given.

Answer the questions:

1.What is the total length of the Amur river?

2.What is the distance from Khabarovsk to the Pacific Ocean?

3.When was the Russian-Chinese Treaty on the Amur River borderline signed?

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4.When was the navigation on the Amur opened?

5.For what length are Russia and China separated along the Amur river?

6.What expeditions to the Amur middle reaches were made in 1998?

7.What did happen to the river in June and July of 1998?

8.Why is the Amur river much polluted?

9.What problems harmful to the river ecology do occur on the Chinese bank?

10.What measures should be taken to ensure an ecological safety of the Amur river?

Amur tiger

In Russia, the tiger occurs in a small area of the extreme Far East of the country. It inhabits the coniferous and broadleaf forests of the Primorsky Krai and the Khabarovsky Krai, mainly on the eastern or right bank of the Ussury and Amur rivers. The northern most boundary of its distribution is located to the south of Khabarovsk City.

The subspecies of the Amur tiger (Latin: Panthera tigris altaica) is distributed only in the extreme Far East of Russia. The Amur tiger differs from other tiger companion subspecies because of its large size and thick winter fur.

Our tigers possess great individual variability in size, especially males which may continue growing even after reaching adulthood. On average, the length of a full grown male can be up to 290 centimeters and their weight can be 260 kilograms or even more. One giant tiger has been recorded with the weight of 390 kilograms and the length of more than three meters. Female tigers are of lesser size, with an average length of 160 to 180 centimeters and a weight of 140 to 160 kilograms.

Tiger's tracks are frequently seen along any road within coniferous-broadleaf forests in the Bekinsky, Vyazemsky, Lazo and Nanaysky regions of the Khabarovsky Krai. A small number of tigers inhabit nearer to the city of Khabarovsk in the Bolshekhektzirsky State Reserve Area.

Amur tigers can withstand very low temperatures comparatively easy. Thick winter fur and under-skin fat on the abdomen, which is up to lour to five centimeters thick, allows the animal to lie comfortably on the snow for long periods, when chasing its prey, the predator races swift, making leaps of three to four meters long, and leaping over obstacles of two to three meters high. A tiger can even turn in the air while leaping and change direction to follow its prey. When the tiger catches its prey, it grabs half of the body with its fore paws and usually kills it immediately by biting through the prey's neck vertebras. At this moment the tiger is highly excited and begins pulling the kill around for dozens of meters, apparently in order to calm down. Once the excitement has passed, the tiger will lie near the kill licking itself. Afterwards the big predator can pull its prey further on perhaps for a few hundred meters, even up to one kilometer, depending on the size of the kill. The tiger will only stop to make a

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feast under the cover of thick forest far from the eyes of crows.

Almost all big and middle size species of mammals become prey for tigers in the Khabarovsky Krai. The tiger is at the top of the food chain and can hunt wild boar, the deer species such as izuber, roe buck and musk deer-plus brown bears and Himalayan bears, badgers, raccoon dogs and hares. However, the preferred food, the real "passion" of tigers, is young and middle sized wild boar.

Tigers become mature and ready to breed at the age of three to four years old. The breeding season usually occurs during January and February. One male may visit two or three females. During this "wedding season", males often have ferocious fights between themselves which sometimes end in the death of one of the rivals.

The total current population of Amur tigers within the Khabarovsky Krai is 65 to 70 animals, half of them are grown-up or semi-adults. Around 400 animals can be met in the Primorsky Krai and there maybe a few more on the border with Korea.

Far Eastern leopard

The Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis Schlegel) is a rare, threatened subspecies. Its natural habitat covering Northeast China, Korean Peninsula, and the southern part of the Primorsky Krai, Russia, by now has shrunk to a dangerously small area. There are only a few leopards (not more than two dozen) left in China, while in Korea they allegedly disappeared altogether. They can still be found only in the southwestern part of the Primorsky Krai, Russia. According to the survey of the leopard populations recently conducted by wildlife biologists V. Korkisliko and D. Pikunov there, are still 25 to 30 leopards left in the Primorsky Krai, Russia, with some of them having their habitats extending into the Chinese territory. In the early 20th century, the leopard was frequently spotted by local people on the spurs of the Sikhote Alin mountain

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complex and to the southwest of Lake Khanka, but with the passage of years wildlife biologists failed to spot the leopard there.

The harsh winters and depletion of game were, the most significant factors that had dwindled the роpulations of the Amur leopard in the past and during past several decades the expansion of economic activity of man has displaced the leopard from its traditional habitat and has driven it to the brink of extinction…

There has not been put a stop to poaching not only of leopard's prey, such as roe and Japanese deer, raccoon dogs, badgers, and hares, but the leopard itself As concerns hunting the Amur leopard, it is not a very difficult task: virtually any pack of hounds are able to make not only a young leopard, but an adult one as well climb a tree; hunger drives it to try any meat bait and as a result it can easily fall into a trap. And that is what poachers make use of.

The only wildlife sanctuary where the Amur leopard can breed is Cedar Creek Valley located in the southern part of the Primorsky Krai, Russia. But even this sanctuary has become so small (about 18,000 ha) that it can no longer play a critical role in the conservation of this graceful big cat.

Outside the wildlife sanctuary Cedar Creek Valley the only refuge for the leopard in the Primorsky Krai, Russia, remains a small area of about 200 kilometers between the Razdolnaya River and the Posyet Gulf. There the leopard keeps to a diminishing pristine, mountainous belt of coniferousbroadleaved and hardwood forests along the border with China, primarily on the Borisovsky Plateau. Hillsides and plateaus facing the rivers have numerous cliffs with convenient recesses and caves that are indispensable for leopards as shelter in bad weather as well as for breeding.

The area is teeming with roe deer and is rather far from human settlements; in the forest belt along the Chinese border one can find large herds of Japanese deer. These ungulates are the principal prey for the leopard thanks to whom it can survive the harsh winters. Of great help for the leopard are Manchurian hares, raccoon dogs, badgers, and some other game living in that area.

The leopard is perhaps the most beautiful, graceful, strong, and daring of all the big cats and at the same time it is a very cunning predator. Its tawny yellow fur decorated with dark spots clustered together in rosette shapes helps conceal the animal in its natural surroundings, be it a taiga forest, grassland, or a glade covered with yellowed leaves. The leopard has strong eyes, acute hearing, and a fine of smell. Unhurried when content, it can bound with great speed, is a good climber, and is unbelievably strong: carcasses of prey weighing from 35 to 68 kilograms have been found in tress 4 to 6 meters above ground where a leopard had carried them. As compared with the tiger, it is not very big: a female may weigh about 50 kilograms; a male: up to 70 kilograms. It feeds upon any animals it can overpower, but generally preys on the smaller and medium-sized ungulates.

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Bears

Brown bear is one of the most widespread, well-known and popular animals in Russia. Generally considered the national symbol, it was almost unanimously voted a mascot of 1980 Moscow Olympics. Big and peaceful bear is a favorite character of fairy tales and cartoons. Few people realize that it is the very same species as the much-feared grizzly bear of North America. Although on average bears kill ten people per year in Russia (much more in the years of poor pine nuts crop in Siberia), it is not unusual to see tourists routinely using bear trails, or village girls gathering berries almost side by side with brown bears. If such an idyllic scene happened in America, the bear would almost certainly be shot, and the girls would have to endure a three hour-long safety talk by park rangers.

Unfortunately, this almost-peaceful coexistence of bears and people, quite common in remote areas of Russia only two decades ago, is now rapidly becoming a fairy tale itself. Poaching for bale, fat and skins has severely depleted bear populations in all more or less accessible parts of the country

It is believed that Ursus arctos colonized America from Asia. Not surprisingly, brown bears of the Old World show much higher diversity in appearance and behavior than their descendants in the USA and Canada. It is possible that this species is undergoing further speciation before our very eyes.

Unlike in North America, where brown bears seem to prefer open landscapes (grasslands, Alpine meadows and tundra), in Eurasia they inhabit mostly dense forests, although they were probably more widespread in grasslands and even deserts in the past. One possible reason for this difference is that the particular population that invaded America thousands of years ago was tundra-adapted. In fact, the Chukchi Peninsula on the Asian side of the Bering Strait is the only place in Asia where brown bears live year-round in lowland tundra. Another possible explanation is that in America, dense forests are occupied by American black bear (U. americaniis). Its Asian counterpart, the Himalayan bear (U. tibetanus), is limited in its distribution to hardwood forests of Eastern Asia and