War and wildlife

摘要

The continuing war in Ukraine, and especially the disastrous destruction of the Kachovka Dam about one month ago, made me think about the collateral damage of war to wildlife and international scientific collaboration. The breach of the Kachovka dam in the early hours of the 6th of June unleashed a torrent of water that flooded villages and towns, led to people and livestock drowning and caused the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from both sides of the Dnipro River in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region. It also caused what many fear will be one of Europe’s biggest environmental disasters in decades. Mud and toxic substances, including pesticides, buried in the sediments of the Kachovka Reservoir have spread over large areas downstream ofthe dam. The inundated area is far larger than the former flood plains that were previously inundated by natural floods on the Dnipro river, before the construction of the Kachovka Dam. For example, the fluvioglacial sand dune landscape of the Oleshky Sands National Nature Park is now inundated. Until this event, this site contained about half of the world’s population of the sandy blind mole-rat (Spalax are-narius), a species endemic to Ukraine, with a very restricted range along the lower Dnipro River. Another species, Nordmann’s birch mouse CSicista loriger), while not endemic to Ukraine, has its main strongholds in remnant steppe habitats along the lower Dnipro river. According to the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group, 70 of its world population has been affected by the flooding.