Scientific publications

The 2748 km2 of the Lapland Reserve represent northern taiga and alpine tundra. There occur 13 diurnal raptor species, 10 of which nest in the area. From the 1930s to the 1960s —1980s, the numbers of the Osprey Pandion haliaetus, the White-tailed Sea Eagle Haliaeetus albicilla, the Merlin Falco columbarius, and the Kestrel Falco tinnunculus were decreasing. Since then, the status of the species populations has stabilized and their abundance has been increasing. The reasons for that are reduced use of pesticides, and improved attitude towards raptors. The abundance of the wintering species, the Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos, the Goshawk Accipiter gentilis, and the Gyrfalcon Falco rusticolus, as well as that of the Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrine has been either stable or increasing since the 1980s. The most common species are the Roughlegged Buzzard Buteo lagopus, the Goshawk and the Merlin. The area of strict nature reserves is insufficient for maintaining stable populations of raptors which are naturally rare. The main risk factors in the Murmansk region are logging of old-growth forests, declining food resources, water pollution, disturbance during the breeding season, poaching, accidental trapping in baited traps, commercial exploitation, accumulation of chlorine organic compounds and other contaminants, and accidental netting. The present-day status of raptor populations in the Kola Peninsula needs to be studied better.