Rustai (Russia): Volunteers are working with the Russian authorities to re-introduce forest reindeer to the Nizhny Novgorod region.
The creatures, once plentiful, were hunted to all but extinction after the Russian Revolution.
Now conservationists are breeding reindeer and adapting them for life in the wilderness.
The forest reindeer, (Rangifer tarandus fennicus) a sub-species of reindeer, is making a return to the forests of Nizhny Novgorod where it has been absent since the Russian Revolution in 1917.
Civil war, hunting and urbanisation all but made them disappear completely in this range.
Now, thanks to a state funded restoration project that launched in 2014, conservationists and volunteers are successfully re-populating the forests with reindeer.
Local supervisors provide the animals with food and monitor their condition.
On the menu, in addition to leaves, the animals get mineral and vitamin supplements and their favourite delicacy - moss.
"In general, one of our tasks is to preserve the gene pool. To preserve exactly the kind that lived here before the civil war, before the revolution. These species inhabited not only this particular territory but also the territory of the Moscow Region, Vologda and up to Finland. They were destroyed and now a project is underway to restore these species," says Sergey Surov from the Programme for Restoration of Reindeer in Nizhny Nogrod Region.
The team hope the animals will breed and their offspring can be released into the wild.
The conservationists intend to buy more forest reindeer from zoos across Europe to increase the herd and capture wild forest reindeer from the Arkhangelsk region.
Currently a herd of 13 reindeer graze in Nizhny Nogrod's forests, ten of which were brought from breeding programmes and three calves born in the reserve.
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(With inputs from APTN)
