Gorgany Nature Reserve

Gorgany Nature Reserve (Derzhavnyi zapovidnyk “Gorgany”). A 5,344 ha nature reserve established in 1996 in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast’s Gorgany Mountains, the central part of the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains. The reserve’s highest peak is Mount Dovbushanka (1,755 m). The landscape’s distinguishing features are steep, rocky slopes and many inaccessible peaks. Over eighty percent of the territory is covered with mixed beech-fir-spruce, fir-spruce, and relict pine-spruce forests. Rare Swiss stone pine forest stands are found at altitudes of 1,000 to 1,400 m, and a vast zone of mountain-pine krummholz growth is located above the forest belt. Among the reserve’s protected flora and fauna are a number of rare and endemic species, including twenty plant and twenty-two animal species listed in Ukraine’s Red Data Book of endangered species, and three animals listed in the Red Data Book of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Rare and endemic plants found there include the perennial honesty, martagon lily, aconite, and over ten orchid species, and the animal species include the spotted salamander, alpine newt, Carpathian newt, grayling, and Eurasian minnow.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Krichfalushi, V. ‘Zapovidni terytorii Ukraïns'kykh Karpat,’ in Pryroda Karpats'koho rehionu Ukraïny, ed. Karpova, H. et al (Kyiv 1999)

Volodymyr Kricsfalusy

[This article was written in 2008.]