Caucasian Nature Reserve

Caucasian Nature Reserve (Кавкaзький державний природний біосферний заповідник; Kavkazkyi derzhavnyi pryrodnyi biosfernyi zapovidnyk; Russian: Кавказский государственный природный биосферный заповедник; Kavkazskii gosudarstvennyi prirodnyi biosfernyi zapovednik). With an area of over 280,000 ha this is the largest preserve on the Ukrainian ethnic territories of the Kuban. The majority of the park lies in the Krasnodar krai, in the Western Caucasia, on the upper Bila Laba River and Mala Laba River, at an altitude of 500–3,150 m. The preserve was created in 1920–4 as the High Mountain Landscape (Vysokohirskyi kraievyd). It contains all the vegetative zones that are characteristic of Caucasia and over 3,000 flora species. The preserve is inhabited by such species as the wisent, deer, chamois, wild boar, goat, wildcat, and brown bear. The most interesting birds that live here are the Caucasian woodcock, black vulture, and mountain eagle.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]