A 2nd year PhD-student of the Department of Biodiversity and Biological Resources, Nazerke Bizhanova completed a project on the topic: “Population and conservation status of the Turkestan lynx (Lynx lynx isabellina Blyth, 1847) in the Kazakh part of the Northern Tien Shan”. The project was funded by the Rufford Foundation (Rufford Small Grants for Nature Conservation).

Members of the research group: Nazerke Bizhanova, PhD-student at al-Farabi KazNU and Junior Researcher at the Institute of Zoology, Project Leader; Alexey Grachev, Head of the Laboratory of Mammalogy at the Institute of Zoology; Yuri Grachev, Leading Researcher of the Institute of Zoology; Saltore Saparbayev, Researcher at the Almaty Nature Reserve and the Institute of Zoology; Erlik Baidavletov, Researcher at the Institute of Zoology and the Ile-Balkhash Natural Reserve; Sergei Bespalov and Maxim Bespalov, senior laboratory assistants and field experts at the Institute of Zoology.

Thanks to the project, it became possible to study the rare subspecies of the Eurasian lynx in more detail. These studies are part of Nazerke Bizhanova’s doctoral thesis on the topic: “Distribution and subspecies diagnosability of the Turkestan lynx (Lynx lynx isabellina Blyth, 1847) in the Northern Tien Shan”.

Project leader Nazerke Bizhanova

Field trips to the Northern Tien Shan mountains. In the photo (from left to right): Nazerke Bizhanova, Saltore Saparbayev, Amanbol Sailauhanuly (Junior Researcher of the Almaty Reserve), Alexey Grachev

Chair of biodiversity and bioresources 

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