Author: jonathanslaght

Jonathan C. Slaght received an undergraduate degree in Russian Language from Drew University (Madison, NJ, USA) in 1998, then served in the United States Peace Corps in Primorye, Russia between 1999-2002, where he lived in the villages of Lazo and Ternei teaching English and Environmental Education. He received a Master’s Degree in Conservation Biology (2005) and a Ph.D. in Wildlife Conservation (2011) from the University of Minnesota (St. Paul, MN, USA) studying birds in the Sikhote-Alin Mountains. Jonathan is the Russia & Northeast Asia Coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation Society, working for both the Asia and the Arctic Beringia Regional Programs. He is involved in research projects of fish owls, tigers, and migratory waterbirds across Asia. Jonathan has authored several dozen scientific and popular publications, and had translated numerous scientific and popular texts from Russian. His writings and research have been featured in The New York Times, National Public Radio, Scientific American, Smithsonian Magazine, and Audubon Magazine, among others. He splits his time between Primorye and his home in Minneapolis, Minnesota that he shares with his wife and two young children.
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Owls & the Meaning of April

A Blakiston’s fish owl. Image (c) Jonathan C. Slaght

The transition from winter to spring always brings out a curious mixture of emotions in me. For years, April had meant the end of a field season, weeks of cold and discomfort spent with my local colleagues in the Russian woods, sometimes a hundred or more kilometers from the nearest human settlement, sleeping in a wood-heated truck and eating what fish we could catch through ice holes in nearby rivers.

We were in the forest looking for Blakiston’s fish owls, the largest owls in the world, an endangered species that lives in some of the hardest-to-reach corners of northeast Asia. Our goal was to study fish owls to learn how to protect them. Winter was the best time to find these cryptic birds as we could see the tracks they left along snowy river banks as they hunted for salmon.

Spring was the annual, clear end point for my work in Russia: the thaw made river ice unsafe to walk or drive on, and the sun’s renewed warmth softened the frozen mud of forest roads, making them impassable. While I loved my long bouts in close contact with one of the world’s most mysterious birds, spring brought deliverance. I’d bested another winter. Soon, modern conveniences such as electricity, indoor plumbing, and sidewalks would be mine once more to treasure and, gradually, take for granted.

While I no longer devote every February, March, and April to Russian forests, the project has continued. The work is truly collaborative, and my colleagues Sergey Surmach and Sergey Avdeyuk have become good friends.  At first neither they nor I could do this work independently, but now they are in the woods more often than not without me. We continually expand our knowledge base of this enigmatic species, and this year I’d planned to rejoin the team.

But as the coronavirus’s insidious tendrils gripped more and more of the world, it quickly became clear that this season’s expedition would leave me behind. I remain in Minneapolis, inside a closet I recently converted to my office, taking turns with my wife to manage our two children while trying to maintain some semblance of order.

On a recent walk through my neighborhood, with a rain-sleet-snow mixture swirling through the bare branches of the maples that line my street, I turned into the wind, welcoming the ice as it stung my face. It reminded me of the end of a field season. I knew this was winter’s last assault, a threatening posture to project strength and hide weakness. I thought of Sergey and Sergey in the forest on the other side of the world, possibly evaluating a swollen, muddy river to decide if they can cross it, or maybe free-climbing a 30-foot poplar to a fish owl nest to see if there are precious chicks inside. Ironically, even with bears coming out of hibernation, Amur tigers on the prowl, and no help in case they get in trouble, they are in possibly one of the safest places in the world right now. It’s a natural form of extreme social distancing.

April blended to May unnoticed from my windowless office/closet, and I feel sadness for the ice and snow that passed. But excitement wells in me as I await news from the two Sergeys, stories of owls found and new discoveries. And most importantly I am comforted knowing that the remarkable fish owls are still being studied and protected, an ongoing mission that even this pandemic cannot reach.

This post originally appeared as part of the “East of Siberia” blog at Scientific American.

Jonathan Slaght’s memoir of his work with Blakiston’s fish owls will be released August 4, 2020, from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux in the United States and Penguin in the United Kingdom. Pre-order in the USA now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, or my local bookseller, Moon Palace Books. UK readers can pre-order from Waterstones and Amazon.

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Remarkable Bird Discovery in Russia

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Nordmann’s greenshank on the nest, the first time this has been seen in more than forty years. Photo courtesy Philipp Maleko

I’ve been quite busy the last year working on my fish owl book for Farrar, Straus, & Giroux (and Penguin in the UK), so have been a little quiet on these pages.  Popping my head up to share some remarkable bird news out of Russia.

It was just reported that a Russian-American team of biologists found the nest of a globally-endangered Nordmann’s greenshank (Tringa guttifer).  What’s amazing about this find is that, until June 2019, only a single person in the entire world had ever seen one of these nests. Dr. Vitalii Nechaev found five nests in 1976, but not a one had been seen since then.

Nordmann’s greenshank, one of the most endangered shorebirds in the world, is thought to have a population of fewer than 2000 individuals, and they nest only in Russia. They have experienced a steep population decline in recent decades, linked largely to habitat destruction and illegal hunting in Southeast Asia where they spend their winters.

Their nesting habitat is quite remote, which is one of the reasons it’s taken more than four decades for a nest to be rediscovered. To reach the site, the ornithologists took a motorboat along the Sea of Okhotsk coast, then walked inland several kilometers through coastal wetland teeming with bears.

Please see the recent New York Times article for more details. Let’s hope this discovery will lead to more revelations about this endangered species that can help protect it from extinction.

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Goral on the Cliffs

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Long-tailed goral. Photograph (c) WCS Russia/Sikhote-Alin Reserve

The Khuntami Cliffs are a cathedral of rock. They rise slowly from inland to crest like an enormous wave frozen just before crashing into the Sea of Japan. It’s been a favorite spot of mine in the Sikhote-Alin Reserve for years now; I’ve seen everything from nesting Eurasian eagle owls to Pacific swifts here, watched Minke whales in the sea, and seen tracks of wild boar, Asiatic black bears, and Amur tiger in the sand along Khuntami Bay below.

It was these latter beasts—the bears and the tigers—that were on my mind a few autumns ago, when I neared the top of the cliffs and something big and unseen exploded in movement from the nearby vegetation.

The mystery creature had only been a few meters away in a stunted, chest-high oak grove before it flushed and, given the wind that day, apparently had not heard or smelled me until I almost kicked it. Instead of a predator, however, I saw prey. A long-tailed goral burst from the bushes to clamber onto a vantage point to assess me as friend or foe, its hooves clicking like high heels on the rock.

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